Barbados IMF programme 2018

Two months after Trinidad Carnival 2019 and as Caribbean spring tourism gets underway, Barbados’s IMF reform programme shows early results after six months in operation. Jamaica’s fiscal improvement continues to drive property market confidence while Guyana’s oil countdown moves ever closer to its defining moment.

Trinidad Carnival 2019 (February 4-5) delivers a strong economic performance as the twin-island republic’s culture economy fires on all cylinders. The Caribbean’s peak winter tourism season reaches its zenith across Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic, while Barbados’s IMF reform narrative gains definition and Guyana’s first-oil countdown intensifies.

As 2019 gets underway, the Caribbean investment community assesses a landscape shaped by Barbados’s new IMF programme, rising US interest rates, continuing post-hurricane reconstruction, and the imminent prospect of Guyanese first oil. Jamaica’s macroeconomic success provides the region’s most encouraging template.

A comprehensive year-end review of Caribbean property and investment in 2018: the region’s remarkable recovery from the 2017 hurricane catastrophe, Barbados’s landmark IMF programme signed in October, Jamaica’s fiscal success story, and the themes that will define 2019.

Barbados secures a landmark IMF programme in October 2018, providing a credibility anchor for the island’s fiscal reform. As the Caribbean holiday tourism season peaks, Dominica marks 14 months of slow-but-steady reconstruction and Jamaica’s property market closes the year on strong footing.

The 2018 hurricane season draws to a close having largely spared the Caribbean, a merciful contrast to the catastrophe of 2017. Barbados’s IMF programme negotiations near conclusion as the Mottley government demonstrates fiscal commitment, and the winter tourism season opens with strong advance bookings.

August 2018: Caribbean hurricane preparedness dominates the agenda as the 2018 season peaks; Barbados IMF talks advance under PM Mottley; the economic recovery trajectory across the region strengthens despite elevated construction costs.