Building projects restarting

Governor of the Central Bank Cleviston Haynes is giving the assurance that a number of construction projects are scheduled to be revived or get started in the coming months.

However, while indicating that he preferred the announcement of those projects to be made by the Minister of Finance Mia Mottley, who is also the Prime Minister, Haynes said he was satisfied that several projects were “already in the works”.

“I would probably want to leave those to the Minister of Finance to be able to address, but we do see a number of investment projects that are almost ready if not ready, and therefore we have to be able to get them over the line,” he said.

Haynes was responding to questions from the media on Tuesday as he delivered his quarterly economic review, in which he stressed the need for vaccination so that the island’s bread and butter tourism sector could quickly recover.

The Governor said he was eagerly looking forward to increased activity in the construction sector, pointing out that this would create a positive ripple effect for the economy.

“By having that increased activity once again you are creating jobs, you are creating activity for persons and that is where I think a lot of small businesses will begin to thrive and bring the economy back to where we hope it would be sooner rather than later,” he said.

The Central Bank governor acknowledged that Sandals Resorts International and the Ocean Hotels Group recently completed some expansion work, while work on the Wyndham Grand and the Hyatt Ziva Hotel were continuing.

In relation to vaccination, Haynes said it was important that more Barbadians took the COVID-19 jab so that schools could return to normal, the island could attract more tourists and businesses could go back to longer opening hours.

He also welcomed a recent decision by Government to remove the second testing requirement for fully-vaccinated visitors, saying “the country is trying to make the protocols a little bit easier in order to encourage persons to come to visit”.

“In many of our main tourist source markets, there is a high level of vaccination. Therefore there is a pent-up demand to travel to destinations like our own . . . But we are conscious also that in order to accommodate increased tourist activity that we ourselves need to make sure that we are protected on the one hand and that the tourists feel confident that they themselves are protected,” said Haynes.

“That is why we place so much emphasis on the need for increased vaccination because we see that as critical to supporting the protocols. The protocols are one thing but if you want to send the message to potential tourists that this is a good jurisdiction, then I think the increased vaccination rates are going to be important,” he added.
(MM)