Caribbean investment outlook
A comprehensive review of 2022’s defining events for Caribbean property and investment: the Russia-Ukraine inflation shock, Hurricane Fiona, tourism’s dramatic recovery and Guyana’s oil boom, with a 2023 outlook.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 sent oil prices above $105 per barrel, triggering an immediate energy and food price shock across the Caribbean’s import-dependent economies while tourism bookings held firm.
The Omicron wave disrupted Caribbean tourism in January 2022, but open-border policies held firm. The Bank of Jamaica raised its policy rate and Russia-Ukraine tensions introduced a new commodity price risk.
A comprehensive review of the Caribbean property and investment landscape in 2021 — tourism recovery, Barbados republic, Guyana oil revenues — and an outlook for 2022 as Omicron clouds the horizon.
Barbados made history on November 30, 2021 becoming the world’s newest republic as Dame Sandra Mason was inaugurated as President. The Omicron variant emerged just days before, testing the region’s tourism recovery momentum.
As 2021 opens with cautious hope, the Alpha/UK COVID variant adds new uncertainty to Caribbean recovery plans, while the Barbados Welcome Stamp’s 5,000-applicant milestone establishes digital nomad programmes as a structural force in Caribbean property demand.
Spring 2019 brings record Caribbean tourism arrivals, strengthening investment sentiment across the region, and mounting excitement over Guyana’s approaching oil era.
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.
Caribbean property markets hold steady as the 2018 hurricane season reaches its peak, with unaffected islands sustaining strong tourism momentum. Barbados PM Mottley’s three-month-old administration accelerates economic reform discussions while the region reflects on its improved preparedness versus the 2017 catastrophe.
June 2018: Caribbean investment outlook brightens as post-Irma/Maria recovery gathers pace, Barbados welcomes new PM Mia Mottley, Guyana oil excitement builds, and rising US interest rates begin to test Caribbean mortgage markets.
Caribbean investment outlook strengthens as post-Irma and Maria reconstruction drives a regional construction boom. Barbados welcomes its new Mottley government with an ambitious economic reform agenda, while Guyana’s oil development draws global attention.
As Caribbean spring tourism delivers a strong performance across unaffected islands, Barbados stands at a historic political crossroads: a general election must be called within weeks, with PM Freundel Stuart’s DLP facing Mia Mottley’s BLP in what polls suggest will be a decisive contest. Meanwhile, reconstruction across Irma and Maria territories continues.
Four months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the Caribbean property market enters 2018 in sharply bifurcated condition. Jamaica and Barbados report exceptional winter season performance while the reconstruction territories continue their long recovery. The insurance market is repricing hurricane risk across the entire region.