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. Since 2010, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda and Jamaica – twice – have had to restructure their debts and enter International Monetary Fund programmes. Others, including Barbados, are also being forced to impose austerity. This is causing social hardship, exacerbating already high crime rates and even endangering the health of their democracies, some senior politicians fear. Government debts of the Caribbean as a whole amounted to roughly 70 per cent of the region’s GDP last year, or $47bn, according to the IMF. Read more. (Subscription required.)
