 Honourable Philip J.P's Labour Party administration is confronted with a convergence of socio-economic challenges due to the pandemic and more recently record high inflation rates and instability on the global oil market linked to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Inclusions like the rest of the world are negotiating the sharp increases in the cost of goods and services associated with these external shocks. Led by Honourable Pierre, the technocrats in the finance and economic development ministries have devised policies designed to shield consumers from escalating market prices. Gemma Lafay is the director of research and policy in the Ministry of Economic Development. During a June 30 news conference, Lafay explained, government continues to forgo tax revenue on retail petroleum products to subdue sharper price increases at the pumps. The price that we see at the pump, although very, very high by historical levels, is significant. It's really reflecting the external vagaries in the international market that we have no control over. We are simply price takers in the world market and we are all consuming public country. So the government has tried to provide relief for years, since June 2021, last year, till about March of 2021 of this year, the government kept the prices stable to shield consumers from the rising price that actually started back then. But when the war broke out in Ukraine, the government wasn't able to continue to basically provide to cover that sort of shield to that extent and there were incremental increases. But yet still, despite these increases in the retail prices, the government's tactic has gone down significantly to negligible amounts and in some cases to negative revenue. The prime minister says the government is in constant pursuit of potential solutions to strengthen consumer protection, to ensure St. Lucian households and businesses stay afloat during this financial crunch currently affecting the global economy. Government had no intervene in the fewer prices. St. Lucia, as of now, would have been facing much higher prices, as we see in St. Kitts, in Barbados and even in Anguilla, which the retail price of gasoline, for instance, hovers around between $18 to $20 a gallon, but we're still at $17.95. So again, the consumer would have faced a lot higher prices had the government not decided to basically reduce the excise tax take and basically go into negative territory to subsidize, to some extent, some of the products. Also, our VAT rates, something that we have recently forgotten, our VAT rate is the lowest in the entire region, right? Yes. It's the lowest. Some countries pay 17.5 percent VAT. I think some people pay 21 percent VAT, I'm not sure about that. But we pay 12.5 percent. So it's a double army. So we're losing revenue from our excise tax and our VAT rate is lower than anywhere else in the region. And further, we have the most exempt goods again as far as VAT is concerned. The cost of oil is directly linked to the cost of consumer goods and some services, according to financial experts. St. Lucia has zero influence on the global oil market and can only use targeted tax policies to manage the impact of volatile price changes on the local economy. From the office of the prime minister, Rihanna Isidou.