Unlock regional capital, CDB president urges

CARICOM leaders should focus on unlocking regional capital and reducing financial barriers to private sector investment in development projects, the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) newly installed President Daniel Best has suggested.

His comments came as CARICOM leaders debated solutions to rising costs and food security challenges, two of the biggest issues on the summit’s agenda being presided over by CARICOM chair Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Speaking ahead of the summit’s main business session on Thursday, Best said he intends to emphasise to the leaders the need for more liquidity in the region and easier access to financing.

“One of the things I’ll be speaking to heads about during the financing session this morning is the importance of CDB covering, seeking to unlock capital in the region,” he said.

“As we know, there are a lot of innovative projects out there, but the threshold with which project developers have to reach, sometimes it’s quite onerous. So how can we move liquidity into the region.”

Best noted that many Caribbean governments are facing fiscal challenges, making it difficult for them to fund major development projects on their own.

He said the CDB’s strong AA+ credit rating, recently reaffirmed by Fitch, would be leveraged to create guarantee systems and concessional financing that can attract private sector involvement1.

“We plan to bring that to the market to provide guarantee systems, to provide concessional resources, to allow private developers to do more within the private sector, to release some of the burden on our governments,” he said.

Best also stressed that international financial institutions and multilateral banks need to do more to “de-risk” investments in the Caribbean.

He said: “The challenge with fiscal space spreads across the Caribbean, and therefore we in the multilateral development banking community, in the IFA community, need to do more to de-risk projects such that private actors and the commercial banking sector can do their part with driving development in the region.”  

The CDB president described his vision for the bank as one of “rebirth”, built on three pillars: “Innovate, Transform, Create.”

He said the bank is committed to bringing new financial products and solutions to the region to support economic growth. (SM)