Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan Monitoring Committee Public Report #13

Since its last report, the BERT MC has continued to receive reports from the Government of Barbados (GOB) on its progress through December 2021 towards the targets agreed in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (“MEFP”) agreed with the IMF within the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility for Barbados (“EFF”).

This report for the period ended December 31, 2021 coincides with the thirteenth set of targets under the EFF on which the BERT MC now comments.

During the period the IMF executive board completed its sixth review under the EFF agreeing that all performance criteria had been met. In addition, the executive board agreed that all structural benchmarks had been met other than the one related to the passage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which was delayed due to the surge in COVID-19 cases. Despite the shortfall on that benchmark the executive board approved a further US$24 million disbursement.

Concurrent with its review the IMF executive board agreed with the GOB’s requests for the modification of performance criteria allowing for a reduced primary surplus target of -1 percent of GDP for fiscal year 2021/22 to accommodate the lingering impact of the pandemic and unexpected spending needs to address natural disasters. Consistent with that amendment upward adjustments were also made to the performance criteria on the net international reserves and the debt ceiling to accommodate the additional financing needs arising from the lower primary balance target. In addition, 2 new structural benchmarks related to renewable energy investments projects were established.

The BERT Monitoring Committee, an independent sub-committee of the Social Partnership with additional representation from the Domestic Barbados Creditors Group (“BCG”) is primarily responsible for monitoring the progress that the GOB is making in respect of its commitments and targets agreed in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (“MEFP”) agreed with the IMF within the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility for Barbados (“EFF”).

To view this report, please download it here.

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Date Posted	March 01 2022
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