 It is my distinct pleasure to meet with you today and to offer my congratulations to the Saloncher Chamber of Commerce on the occasion of this 145th annual general meeting. There are not too many organizations in our corner of the world which can boast such longevity and I imagine that members are justifiably proud of this particular milestone. I welcome this opportunity for dialogue and consultation as it bodes well for that vital and productive relationship which must exist between government and the private sector in the months and years ahead. Such a relationship is both desirable and necessary if we are to conquer the many challenges facing us both as an economy and as a society. Just as government requires the collaboration of an autonomous and unprejudiced private sector, so too does the private sector need the impartial and objective facilitation and recognition of government. This is a vital balance to which I hope we can return. As fit will have it, the last time I addressed you I was the leader of the opposition. Fortunately I have since lost that job and now I have the task of aligning the policy focus of a new administration. I welcome this task especially at this five-month juncture of our new term in office. So let us start from a simple shared premise that COVID-19 pandemic however devastating its effects on the social and economic fabric of our country has provided an imperfect opportunity to pivot to a more relevant and resilient development timeline. I say this in the full belief that our task is not simply to live with COVID so as so many have suggested but to triumph and transform in the face of COVID. And so much of this conversation today is really about the development of partnerships which must be designed and deployed in a brave new approach to national development. I hope we can agree that we tell into the economic status quo is not really a viable option for us or indeed for much of the world. The climate of creative disruption runs deep. Supply lines are changing, production processes are being revised, delivery modes have transformed, the conventional workplace is no more, workers are unwilling to return to marginal existences even parents are choosing homeschooling over employment, shareholders are adjusting expectations and customers are moving on. Taken together, these signals should tell us that obituary is beckoning and it must not be left unawares, longing for a paradigm long gone. Consistent in that reality, our broad economic and political philosophy must be forward looking. We must be governed by the principles of inclusiveness and equity. In business and government we must build meritocracies guided by principles of good governance, we must unbridle the energy and creativity of our people and we work together. Ours cannot be exploitive progress, attitudes of a winner take all and never take the hind most are obsolete and unsustainable in our small interwoven societies that requires enlightened self-interest as much as mutual trust. Without these vital ingredients, we are lost. We also believe that the task of restoring solutions economic and financial stability remains paramount. The stabilization of the last five months continues and is now to be followed by growth. Such growth requires market expansion and job creation in the private sector. Businesses need to be stimulated with savings and investments following swiftly. Even at this initial stage, public and private sectors must collaborate to bring workers back to work but ultimately that collaboration must be extended into sustainable strategies to move our workforce up the professional ladder into better paying jobs. This will strengthen revenue collection for government and enhance our ability to further assist the private sector, whether it is infrastructural or institutional, whether it is human or financial capital, whether it is technological or procedural, our economy must transform itself if it is to grow. Businesses as usual is simply not an option. In this fundamental premise, we must be united because what we collectively require is a new emphasis. That new emphasis must be enlightened by the global realization that the old-fashioned economic exploitation will impoverish us all. Governments, businesses, nations and the planet, both locally and globally, we need a development path to economic dignity, to tolerance, diversity and sustainability. Here at home, we need huge investments in education, in-service training, apprenticeships, online learning, scholarships, added literacy and a host of other human development initiatives to make our economy more functional and competitive and to propel our people forward. No sector can do this alone. I say this in the belief that our governance system is weak and unmoderned, while it may have served us well in the opening chapters of nationhood, it remains stagnant and has become incompatible with our evolution as a sovereign people in a global economy. One simply cannot expect blood from stone. It is clear, for example, that the people of Senegal shall believe in the rule of law, that they strongly reject corruption, that they abhor the abuse of power. They have made these fundamentals abundantly clear and we intend to listen and to obey. To ensure against future abuse, we must now make significant changes to our statutes and to our constitution. Fortunately, we have been given the mandate to do so and, fortunately, will engage civil society in that change process. In this respect, I now ask you to stand by to do your civic duty. As you return to the fundamentals to the belief that the rule of government is to create and sustain their neighbouring environment for business to thrive and for individuals to achieve their individual and committed aspirations, it is not the rule of government or politicians to compete with the private sector, not to run the state apparatus like a private business, betraying the social contract, destroying the public trust and frustrating the arm's length objectivity required for sound and transparent governance. Nor is the ruler of the private sector to appropriate the task of government. There are certain fundamentals which must be centrally provided. This is particularly vital in small economies where fairness, equity and efficiency are essential. Government must therefore be primarily engaged in the provision of public goods, including physical and institutional infrastructure, national security and justice, health and education, clean air and water, the environment and human rights. As the prime move of realization and regulator of commercial activity in our economy, our government will work with the chamber and other businesses to ensure that legislation and regulation do not frustrate private initiative, but rather facilitate business growth and economic progress. So I am encouraged by this early invitation, knowing that we will soon engage in active dialogue and effectively collaborate to achieve these goals. In the meantime, I also hope that we have all learned a very expensive lesson. I hope that we have come to realize only too clearly how our fundamental societal obligations suffer and deteriorate when government becomes distracted and distorted by greed, corruption and self-interest. By way of action, I want to further emphasize that we are moving swiftly to improve the investment climate in our economy, to restore good governance in this country and to re-establish this delucious image internationally as a principled, productive and progressive place to conduct business. What we promised in the months before the general elections in July 26th, the Celestial Air Party made some important promises that we intend to keep. I now summarize these most relevant to the private sector. 1. Stabilizing and growing the economy focused on the housing sector as a key driver of economic growth. 2. Expanding of the digital economy, removing impediments to e-commerce. 3. Diversification into new and emerging sectors with an emphasis on new, the blue, orange and green economies. 4. Development of new fiscal and economic strategy driven by financial realities on the ground. 5. Revitalization of the private sector, removing structural impediments to do in business. I mention these to assure you that they remain pivotal to our economic agenda and that actions are already in play to implement these undertakings. Let it be clearly understood that we are inviting the private sector to join us in pursuit of these diversification and sustainability objectives. We lead but cannot go this route alone. Capital success, both public and private, depends on working together in the interests of ourselves and our country. While we understand that capital has no nationality, we certainly do and ours is distinctly solution. In that voice, I call on the private sector to be active participants in the transformation process, knowing that our will sometimes turn more solely than yours. I urge you to push government not merely as individual lobbyists and narrowly focused interest groups but as an inclusive, broadly constituted, democratic and legitimate private sector agency which understands the imperatives of collaboration for competitiveness and collective progress. It is in that same voice that I encourage you to push yourself to rethink, retool, re-engineer and reposition your side of the economy. Neither your institution nor your business can prosper indefinitely if you continue business as usual. Just like governments, businesses need to engage in renewal, transformation in order to survive. We can help each other to transform but we cannot shield each other from necessary reform and unavoidable change. New business processes, adoption of technology, new marketing techniques and progressive human resource policies are all necessary and this government will assist wherever we can do to help you access, implement and sustain just change. By way of example, global tourism is trending towards a high-end unique, intimate, customized and sustainable cultural travel experiences. This is therefore our opportunity to move up market. This is time to leverage our unique, rich, new bespoke tourism products. This is the time to promote and monetize solutions, culture, cuisine, carnival, entertainment, environment, tradition and history. This introduces a new compatibility of objectives, not obvious before. We now have untold opportunities to merge our blue, orange and green economies in new sustainable ways. Now is the time to learn and build on our own success. In this, we cannot fail. In this and similarly transformative initiatives, we are interested in long-term incentive regimes such as technology-related tax allowances to encourage transformation at the company level. This transformation includes retooling, reskilling, restructuring and upgrading which boost domestic investment and future productivity. We are also very interested in supporting new production models which drive private equity as opposed to debt in the traditional agriculture by devising new productive farming units with production linked directly to markets and consumers. We can achieve new efficiencies that deal attractive rates of returns. In this way, small investors with personal savings can get involved in modern, technologically driven agriculture. This is the perfect time to create strong agribusiness economic systems. We also believe that the old duty-free, tax-free approach to concessions is not sustainable and is a stringent fiscal environment. We need therefore a shift from revenue-depleting subsidies to performance rewards. We believe that concessions should be earned based on dollars invested, employment generation and net economic contribution and linkages to the domestic economy. Fiscal councils are also increasingly recognised as tools promote sound fiscal practice as they provide independent information, analysis, monitoring and compliance with fiscal practices designed to put public debt on a clear downward path. There are some hopeful signs here but vigilance remains the eternal price of freedom. In the short term, global best practices suggest that new business collaborations can be surprisingly fruitful, boosting domestic investment, trade and job creation. Our business community should therefore look beyond layoffs and redundancies towards mobilising idle man-hours to provide technical and financial coaching to downstream small and medium enterprises who are very willing to refocus their business models on customers both closer to home and in the market global. This will also accelerate solutions transition from physical and in-person transactions to virtual online and e-commerce platforms. It helps to remember that local small and medium enterprises can be new suppliers as well as new customers, sometimes simultaneously. What may start as marriages of convenience could flower into new prosperity? Companies wanting to stay agile should revise investment plans to new reality. They can seek professional support and actively engage in debt management strategies with their banks. It is also good to know that generation tech is out there. Others with low debt, zero inventory solutions which reward IP and ICT skills and use digital networks to identify needs and bridge gaps. And it's time to embrace their techno-savvy solutions as the Caribbean equivalents of Uber, Amazon and Airbnb. Meanwhile, we will do our best to avoid another shutdown of this country. This is shared responsibility. Together, we must work to avoid interruption of the economic machinery, knowing that overheads like rent, interest, insurance, maintenance and salaries are growing. That same self-interest should drive businesses to seek out and support startups in their sectors. There is fertile ground out there and a whole generation of young, innovative solution entrepreneurs who can benefit from our capital and business occupants. Don't be afraid to invest, especially in innovation. If you wish to go far, we must go there together. As Minister of Finance, I must temper my optimism with a sober account of where we are today. In so doing, I will resist any urge to throw stones at predecessors, but I will provide an honest and factual account of what my administration inherited on the human office. For financial year, April 2020 to March 2021, the economy contracted by 23%. The most drastic decline in the Eastern Caribbean monetary union and the sixth in the world. At 3.9 billion, we also have the largest public debt portfolio in the monetary union. With debt servicing, consuming 31% of total revenue. Local payables, due to local suppliers, stand at 154 million. Design finance contracts stand at 184.5 million. Payables are repayable within 5 years, the cost of building roads, all of them on tender. Unpaid land acquisitions stand at 60 million. Debt to the University of the West Indies alone stands at 27 million. CDB debt payables are 4.18 million and growing. Under the previous administration, COVID-related borrowings from regional and international creditors amounted to 323 million. As of July 2021, 301 million had been drawn down, leaving 19 million available for future use. The reality of our situation is that governments finances have to be financed largely from rollover financing, bond financing, and treasury bills. For the last three months and until the next budget cycle, we have no access to institutional lending as this avenue was exhausted by the last administration. The management of COVID-19 during the fourth wave within a population with high levels of vaccine resistance has compounded the challenges we now face. Fortunately, we have managed to stabilize in country spread and indicators are that we are doing much better than a few months ago. However, we have to watch closely new variants. Access to save and affordable vaccines will be critical to a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. We will be aware that we are providing vaccines to the entire population at no cost to ensure that affordability is not a hindrance to vaccination. Our strategy is to continue to encourage the population to vaccinate by increasing access at the community level, increasing awareness through education, and providing incentives to persons for getting vaccinated. With the support of multilateral agencies like the World Bank and UNDP, we are taking steps to reduce the high level of vaccine hesitancy and increase the uptake towards a target of herd immunity of 70% of the population. We are gradually opening up the economy to full normalcy while we keep prescribed COVID-19 protocols in place to avoid any resurgence of the virus. With that background, the difficult fiscal situation has caused governments to give priority to debt servicing, financing COVID-19 demands, strengthening healthcare delivery services, and giving much needed support to the education sector. We are very mindful of the high unemployment situation and are working to bring relief to the unemployed, to small business owners, minibus owners, and other self-employed persons who have been directly impacted by the protocols. Given our current economic circumstances and suboptimal management in the last five years, we also need to do some seed planting if we are to be better positioned on the other side of this pandemic. To this end, last Monday, my administration launched the Youth Economy Initiative. The Central Statistics Office reports that youth unemployment affects over 15,000 Saint Lucia between the ages of 18 and 29, representing some 23% of the population. Our government understands the crippling long-term effects of unemployment on unengaged youth. We have made a solemn promise to the youth of Saint Lucia in our 2021-26 manifesto to alleviate the unemployment situation and now, in the seat of government, we are implementing this live-changing initiative, especially for them. Our youth economy initiatives will transform hobbies into entrepreneurship and skills into business and ideas into enterprise. It will provide training, finance, marketing, and mentorship for our young people in a strategic set of interventions. In the weeks ahead, we'll conduct an analysis to identify the current state of existing youth economic programs. The information will be used to fashion a comprehensive action plan to include policies, programs, projects required to design, finance, implement, and maintain a sustainable, vibrant, and impactful youth economy. In the months ahead, we'll continue to be a period of fiscal consolidation while we attend to the pressing needs of the various sectors of the economy, especially the health sector and the unemployed. As such, you can rationally expect that this administration will pursue a path of prudent financial management to return the macroeconomic indicators of the economy to sustainable positions as required by regional and international financial institutions. The stability of government's finances is critical to restoring a good investment climate, to attract new investment, and to spur economic growth. A debt review exercise is ongoing to provide government with a well-structured plan to move forward within manageable parameters. Even with the limited resources available to us, we are taking steps to prime the economic pump through community-based projects. Government has already launched a $10 million housing repairs project for the most vulnerable while addressing the issues of drainage, water harvesting, and unmanaged water flow in communities. We shoot them back on a national cleanup campaign in the coming weeks, in addition to injecting some funds in the youth economy. The Canada ministers have appointed a review committee to examine what transpired at St. Jude Hospital Reconstruction Project and has decided to recommence work to complete the original hospital structure at OJ in Viewfort. A similar review committee was appointed for the Hewanore International Airport Development Project without stopping work on that project. As we gradually adjust the COVID-19 protocols and open up the economy, we are seeing improvements in government revenue. We expect this trend to continue if the current reduction in the COVID-19 infections has sustained. The outlook for tourism has been encouraging. We are forecasting a good tourism season, starting in early December and well into 2022. Those hotels are projecting above average to overbookings into the second quarter of 2022. The crew sector is also showing bookings in excess of previous projections. Meanwhile, government is avidly engaged in the 2022-2023 budget planning process. I will outline some of our priorities for the ensuing financial year given our very tight fiscal circumstances. We can all agree that a level of crime afflicting our country is unacceptable and that the security of our country is of paramount importance as our businesses, citizens and visitors all need to be safe and tranquil in their communities in which to grow, live, work and enjoy their vacations. It is our collective responsibility therefore to take all necessary actions to bring our crime situation under control. I call on the private sector to join us in this important national fight in the months and years ahead. We should, for example, continue to consider joint public-private sponsorships for social programs such as after-school activities for youngsters at risk. This administration will implement policies to facilitate greater investment participation by our nationals. This measure will provide impetus for the private sector to invest in new business opportunities in the areas of creative industry, particularly crossover activity-engaging youth. Green technology, particularly renewable energy adaptation for households and businesses. Village tourism, particularly village-based accommodation, sites, attractions and amenities. Marine resource development, including water-based business activity. The digital economy, including the development of online or web-based businesses. On the infrastructural front, our immediate plans remain constrained by pre-existing commitments from which we cannot easily extricate ourselves. We will therefore concentrate on the completion of the St. Jude Hospital to provide a proper health facility serving the needs of people in the southern half of our country. We will also continue the HIA redevelopment project once Cabinet considers the recommendations in the final report of the Project Review Committee. Similarly, we are given serious consideration to the present operations of the Citizenship By Investment Program and will incite strategic changes to enable it to generate more revenue for the country. As I am about to end, I want to reiterate that as partners in development, the government and the chamber have to work together to innovate, retool and transform the economy. We must reposition this economy to be a competitive place to live, work and do business. Our citizens here and the diaspora must be fully engaged in the development process and the creation of opportunity and wealth. Too many of us, for too long, have merely subsisted in survival mode. The area of scarcity, corruption and wastage must end. We owe this to ourselves and to the generations to whom we hope to pass the business and government and commerce. In this, we must not feel. No doubt, some of us just want the old times to return. But realistically, that is not going to happen. We must be willing to move on and for that to happen, we must bring citizens, companies and communities together, building teams around shared goals. This is hard work with high rewards. I know that this is a difficult time for leaders in public and private life, in communities as much as corporations. But leadership is exactly what we need right now. Sweeping laws and powers are increasingly useless compared to outreach and inclusion. If we can agree that adversarial postures are unproductive, we can also agree that these times call for a shared enlightenment which bridges differences to achieve mutual progress. That requires new truth and new trust. I am making that offer in the hope and expectation that the private sector is ready to reciprocate. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all persistent prosperity and thank you profoundly for this opportunity. I thank you.