Caribbean leaders seek international financial support

Amid low economic growth and worsening debt situation, Caribbean governments on Wednesday called for support from multilateral financial institutions to facilitate their integration into the global economy. St. Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony said the institutions should help Caribbean countries in lobbying the international community for concessionary rates that would aid in reducing debts. "The IMF, for instance, must join us to petition the international community for special terms on which debt can either be restructured or reduced." Anthony said in his address at the Caribbean Development Bank's governors meeting in Castries, St. Lucia. Anthony said the World Bank, through its International Finance Corporation (IFC) subsidiary, should make greater efforts to assist Caribbean countries to mobilize funding for major infrastructural developments to spur economic growth in different Caribbean countries. The United Nations, Anthony said, also has agencies that can assist in "facilitating the restructuring of our domestic economies and their insertions into global economy." Anthony made the appeal after Moody's ratings agency said few Caribbean countries have stable economies and many of them would be forced to restructure their debts in light of the worsening economic situation. Warren Brown, president of the CDB, said economic growth was the only guarantor of fiscal sustainability and a distributable surplus.