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Barbados
Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland believes Barbados must have strong insolvency legislation and sound insolvency procedures as it seeks become globally competitive, Loop reported. Addressing a meeting on the country’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, hosted in conjunction with IMPACT Justice and the Government of Canada, he noted that the Mia Mottley-led Government was committed to implementing relevant reforms to improve business on the island.
Barbados’ prime minister is butting heads with creditors over how to cut one of the world’s largest sovereign debt loads, creating a sticking point in the year-long negotiations to restructure the Caribbean nation’s defaulted dollar bonds, Bloomberg News reported. Talks with foreign creditors have dragged on since last June, when Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she would restructure the island’s “unsustainably high” debt burden. While both sides said they are open to continued negotiation, they appear far from consensus.
Barbados' creditors are gearing up for debt restructuring talks as the government advances discussions with the IMF over a potential financing package, LatinFinance reported. Newly-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley and her administration, along with financial advisors White Oak, are expected to continue meetings with domestic creditors and their advisors over the next few weeks, a source familiar with the proceedings has said.
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Barbados must prepare for a long and painful journey back to financial and economic health, after announcing a radical plan to tackle the fourth-biggest debt burden in the world, according to the country’s new premier. The Caribbean island is still reeling from prime minister Mia Mottley’s revelation on Friday that it had discovered previously undisclosed financial liabilities, which lifted the country’s overall debt from 137 per cent of gross domestic product to more than 175 per cent, the Financial Times reported.
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Barbados has announced an “emergency plan” to tackle its mounting economic crisis, including restructuring its public debt, after the Caribbean country’s new government discovered that its liabilities were much worse than thought, reaching 175 per cent of gross domestic product, the Financial Times reported. The Barbados Labour Party, led by Mia Mottley, came to power in an election in late May, propelled by the failure of a tough austerity programme implemented by her predecessor to turnround the island’s economic and fiscal crisis.
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Barbados business leaders and economists say the Caribbean island should seek an accord with the International Monetary Fund as the government struggles to spur an economy with one of the world’s heaviest debt burdens, Bloomberg News reported. Efforts by the government to trim the public sector by firing 3,000 workers and reining in spending failed to spark growth in the first half of the year in a country with a debt load equal to 96 percent of gross domestic product. That prompted the Barbados Chamber of Commerce to say the government should consider talks with the IMF.
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The Barbados High Court has been asked to help settle an international legal battle over $5.2 million believed to be in a local commercial bank account. According to Daily Nation investigations, for the last few months Canadian real estate and investment company Homburg Invest Inc. (HII), represented by Barbadian law firm Elliott D. Mottley & Co., has been engaged in court action here after tracking what it called “diverted funds” that originated in Colorado, United States, were transferred to Nova Scotia, Canada, and ended up in Bridgetown, Barbados.
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Caribbean countries are lobbying furiously for an extensive international debt relief and investment programme, as politicians become increasingly anxious over the social impact of the region’s economic crisis and the resulting government austerity, the Financial Times reported. Most of the dozen anglophone countries in the tropical archipelago off the coast of the US are struggling with large government debts and lacklustre economies after the global financial crisis hurt tourism, the dominant industry of the Caribbean.
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One of Ireland's best-known architectural firms Murray Ó Laoire has gone into liquidation, with the loss of more than 120 jobs, The Irish Times reported. The company cited cumulative bad debts, the difficult market and problems in getting paid on time for the collapse of the business. Murray Ó Laoire has offices in Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Slovakia, Russia, Germany, Libya, Barbados and Abu Dhabi. The company employs 127 people, with the majority of its staff based in Ireland.
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