Despite repeated statements by St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, of a robust and highly confident St. Kitts and Nevis economy, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) is telling a different story.
The ECCB whose goal is to maintain the stability and integrity of the sub region’s currency and banking system for the second time this year revised downward its projected GDP for St. Kitts and Nevis for 2017 with a slight increase in economic activity for 2018.
On Friday, 14th July, updated its website and revised downward its GDP for St. Kitts and Nevis from 2.84 percent to 2.36 percent for 2017.
In January this year, the ECCB had downgraded its GDP for St. Kitts and Nevis from 3.02 percent to 2.84 percent.
The statement from Prime Minister Harris that St. Kitts and Nevis is leading the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) in economic performance is also false.
ECCB statistics on its website show that St. Kitts and Nevis has tumbled down the economic ladder and is now number six of the eight ECCU countries in projected growth for 2017.
First is Antigua and Barbuda with 5.07 percent. Second, Anguilla, 3.40 percent; Third, Dominica, 3.12 percent; Fourth, Grenada, 2.91 percent; Fifth, St. Lucia, 2.53 percent; Sixth, St. Kitts and Nevis, 2.36 percent; Seventh, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 2.32 percent and Eight, Montserrat, 1.34 percent.
The ECCB also made a slight adjustment to the protected growth for 2018, increasing it from 3.85 percent to 3.89 percent.
The latest ECCB statistics confirms what St. Kitts and Nevis’ Leader of the Opposition the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas told the Nation in response to Dr. Harris’ 2017 Budget in December, that the St. Kitts and Nevis economy was worsening under the Team Unity government.
“The economic situation in our country is getting worse when compared to what it was under the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Administration when it lost office in February 2015. The economy is worsening and it continues to deteriorate. The economy is contracting. The growth rate in the economy was doing so well to grow us out of the serious international economic and financial crisis experienced in 2008. That rate of growth is now decelerating and not accelerating as the Team Unity government wants us to believe,” said Dr. Douglas, the former prime minister and minister of finance.