 Prime Minister thank you so much for taking time off your busy schedule to be with us and we welcome you to the studios of the GIS NTN. Always great to be here. Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year to you as well and we'll be discussing all of those things that will make 2020 a happy one to the end of the program. I want to start with your budget address for 2019-2020 and that's going to form the core of our discussion. In there you gave St. Lucian's the sort of roadmap as to what will be happening for the fiscal year and also an insight into where it is that the government wants to take St. Lucian as a country. So I'm going to give you a quote. The need to break free from stagnation and focus on the things that are going to turn lives and the country around. The urgent need is to unlock the opportunities that propel every St. Lucian to an acceptable standard of living and offer the chance to build wealth for themselves and their families. This is the singular focus. People-centered growth. Prime Minister how do you think your government has fared on that front over the last year? We've made tremendous strides. I mean sadly it's not something that can be achieved overnight but it is an overall goal that we have and it's how we measure our success. So the idea of using GDP growth or per capita GDP which are all averages to suggest that we have succeeded is crazy. Those are good indicators in terms of macroeconomics and from a financial basis but ultimately what is it we want to be able to achieve as a society in our opinion as a party is that there needs to be a minimum standard of living. Now if I person I'm not going to say arouse demand but if I'm a person and I don't want to be part of society I want to go and live in the country and if I choose to do that I should they should still have access to the security system the health care system that they want to send their kids to school and it's to make sure that every single St. Lucian has access to that minimum standard of living. So me going around in constituencies and meeting people who are struggling to determine where they're going to get the next meal from or a house is not safe. Talk to them about anything else they're not interested they have a singular focus so genuinely if we want to have democracy democracy means that people must be aware of what is going on and that therefore they have to take an interest but if people are too busy just trying to survive they're not going it's not going to happen and this is the same conversation that we had at the UN with regards to climate change or SDGs they're just not important enough when there are some more bare essentials that people are trying to strive for. So the goal here is is how do we create a society in which government can afford to support people. So if we take health care as an example in the health care insurance program government is intended to pay the health care insurance for the vulnerable the elderly that can't afford it because they can't change their income levels and the unemployed. Now that money has to come from somewhere right so at the same time we have to grow our country sufficiently to generate enough revenue and resources to make sure that we can provide a minimum standard of living for every single person in this country. And speaking about that so the economy must be buoyant in order to do all of those things that you want. We had an IMF mission here last October concluded November 8th and they had the usual article for consultation and the determination was that St. Lucia's near term growth prospects are favorable. It's interesting because I saw your reaction posted on your Facebook page and you said that you were encouraged but there wasn't any feel of celebration in your statement. Why is that? Shouldn't we be celebrating that the IMF believes that we are on a customer favorability when the economy is concerned? Favorability is still potential. You know for me it's not until we've actually realized that potential and it becomes reality. And I know and you and I are having a discussion before. You can have the greatest laid plans but there are a lot of things outside of our control that can stop you. You know when we were in government in 2007 to 2011 and we had a lot of projects lined up and then all of a sudden there was a recession. Outside of our control banks were going into bankruptcy. There was no money available so you now have to adjust so I would say to you what the IMF is saying is that we're on track. A lot of things are lined up and really hopefully this year we will start seeing things come to fruition. And so I know that there's still a tremendous amount of work that has to be done and we have to remain extremely diligent and focused to make sure that these things happen. In your budget presentation for 2019 for 2020 you unveiled a medium-term development plan for 2019 to 2022. Why such a strategy approach? We cannot sit back and expect that we're going to be able to have a one-year budget and that that's going to deliver. One year is insufficient. You know the Chinese 10 years minimum as a short-term plan is 10 years for them and then they have a substantially longer term plan as to where they want to be able to go. And I think that we need to take a similar approach on what we're trying to be able to do in Celusia. So we've made it very clear a globally competitive education system, affordable quality health care, security. So whether you live in a poor neighborhood or a rich neighborhood, the quality and the level of security you obtain should be the same. And then the economic opportunity and economic opportunity means that we provide the opportunity but it's for individuals to take advantage of it. That becomes the nucleus of what we're trying to achieve. So the mid-term plan was how do we now start putting things in place to achieve that overall arching goal. And what we've said is that a GDP of $1.7 billion which is what we're currently at cannot generate enough revenue in the country and we cannot generate enough taxes to be able to fulfill that goal. So there was a very clear objective to say we need to double our GDP of Celusia at minimum and that ultimately we need to triple and if not quadruple the size of the GDP in order to be able to generate the outcomes that we want to be able to have. And so that medium-term goal was to say okay if we were to double the GDP what would be the constraints to that happening. So we know that if we had to double the GDP we need to grow tourism. The airport was inadequate to be able to do that. If we double the GDP there's going to be more people traveling around Celusia. The road network is inadequate. If we're going to double the GDP there's going to be more consumption of water and the production of water around the island was inadequate. We know that the castries port as an example has to be separated meaning that we have to put the container port in its own separate location. We've seen for the last two years in particular and it gets worse and worse every year that the number of cruise ship passengers coming in is blocking cargo ships from coming in and therefore it's becoming uncompetitive on our part. So having a separate port is absolutely necessary if we're going to double our GDP. To make it work. Now the plan identifies six ski areas and you've alluded to to what that is and we're looking at healthcare, education, citizen safety, tourism, infrastructure and agriculture. PM let's look at the banana industry because for a lot of Saint-Duchan's this is still seen as the backbone of the agriculture sector. Gains were made over the last three years in being able to get people to return to the farms. The production was even up but constantly we are seeing that climate change is beginning to impact what it is that we can yield from the banana industry. The government had promised that there would have been exports to the French market and further field in Europe. Can you give us an indication as to where the government is with that? So we believe there's still tremendous potential for bananas. We're about to embark on a pretty significant campaign. So one is to create a brand for our bananas which will include billboards, integration within the hotels. So for instance we want to know that when a tourist is having a banana at the hotel that they see a label on it that resembles the label that they're going to see in the grocery store. And so we want to develop that brand loyalty while they're here. So we get 85,000 British tourists here a year. We know where they're coming from and we can trigger that right down to the neighborhoods as to where the grocery stores are. We want that when they leave that we can give them a recipe book on banana bread and banana colladas and the daiquiri collada. But we also want them to be able to try those products here in Saint Lucia. So we want to increase the consumption of banana products and introduce them to different variations of what bananas can be used for. It is the world's favorite fruit bananas. But we want them to know that Saint Lucia's banana is a very special banana. Secondly that I think that we've started the process of re-looking at Winfresh. So what happened was is that Winfresh was a very successful entity. It had four countries participating in it and only one of those countries is still producing bananas which is Saint Lucia. And so Winfresh remained an agency in the UK to distribute product but to make money they were not generating enough bananas from the Eastern Caribbean to make it successful. So it now sells bananas from the Dominican Republic and from Ghana. And I think that the loyalty and the focus of Winfresh has been deviated and so therefore there's a problem. So really what should have happened with Winfresh is if anything they should have diversified the products that they were selling but they should have always come from the Windward Islands. And I think that the leaders now are re-looking and re-examining that mechanism as to what Winfresh is. So in fact Winfresh UK in my humble opinion if it was done right is something we could have replicated in Canada and we could have replicated in the United States of America as becoming a portal to distribute our products. Why are they not selling dashed in Yam and Fig? Why are they not selling many of the other products that we're for agri-processing here? Sawgrass, what's it called? Seamoss as an example is being one of them are coconut oils. And they should be helping and working with exports in Lucia and with some of the other Winward Islands in identifying those products. So there are serious discussions taking place at looking at that. So either Winfresh can make it or we're going to have to now go and find a new mechanism to distribute our products in the UK. So that is already afoot. In terms of the climate change 100% correct. But there are two things we believe that we can do. One is flooding. So to do better drains so that when heavy rains come that we're not getting that level of flooding in our banana belt as we work. With regards to the wind is to do intercropping. So the idea is to be able to put more cocoa in order that those trees can help break the wind. But it still means that there is always going to be that level of vulnerability. And I think that there is one huge change that is in the process of taking place that really gives me the hope and the Minister of Agriculture the hope that we can continue down this path and it's called Brexit. So I had the opportunity of meeting the Prime Minister Johnson when he came through St Lucia on his way to vacation. And we did discuss that in terms of what is his intentions. And he said we're going to buy as many bananas as we can get. So Brexit happens at the end of this year and it's to make sure that we're having meetings in terms of determining how we can make sure that we can reintroduce our bananas and maybe even the other windward islands will be sufficiently confident now to get back into this sector. Who would have thought it would have been something good coming out of Brexit? Absolutely. And then sir the last one really is the French. Yes. So in the French bananas we originally were going to be exporting to France. We were going to send I think it was three container loads and then we had a storm. And therefore we could not meet the production. Then all of a sudden there was an overproduction in Martinique and Guadeloupe and we got stymied again. So we've now started the process again but when we went to do it the packaging for the French bananas is different than the one for the UK market. And it's not something that our farmers here were accustomed to. And so now we're trying to develop a new market with them in the French market through WinFresh. But right now our production is up significantly and we're currently I believe we're up to about 12 or 15,000 boxes a week. And with the new invigoration coming with Brexit that we're really going to be focusing on that. But we are continuing to explore the opportunity to get into the French market. Alternative crops to bananas. We've spoken a lot about diversification over the years. There's been some successes, strides made, some retardation in certain areas. What are your thoughts on what we can do definitively to ensure that we diversify? So there's a couple of things because it's one is when you see diversifying from bananas and you're 100% right. The output per acre that bananas produces but more importantly the size of the market that banana offers is tough to replace. If we're going to do in fresh crops, cabbage and lettuce, it's limited where we can sell that. We can sell that in St. Lucia and in the nearby islands. So there's a cap on how much we can actually sell. Whereas with bananas when you talk about 65 million brits and you talk about the consumption even here locally, that's a huge market potential. So it means that we used to produce 120,000 tons of bananas a year. I think we're at 20 or 30,000 tons of bananas a year now. So we have still a long ways to go to get back up to that level of capacity. The diversity is really cocoa. Cocoa is a powerful crop and that it's healthy. So unlike what people think it's the milk chocolate that's bad for you but once you start getting into 70% plus cocoa it's actually considered to be healthy. St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada and Tobago have a high quality cocoa. Not only that, it is potentially possible that the cocoa that we produce on island can be used all on island. So Hotel Chocolat, Jade Mountain or Anne Chastain, Fondue and there's a company in Canaries that are producing chocolate bars and so therefore these are the full processing, our beans, our processing, producing our own chocolate and between local consumption and the tourists that are coming down they can't keep it on the shelves. So the traditional cocoa sticks, I mean I have good friends who are complaining continuously, more and more difficult to find a cocoa stick. I can't find the cocoa stick at the supermarket. And then with what we're planning on doing at the castries market in terms of upgrading the facilities there bringing more people into that location it's to create even more outlets for sale. So I think that cocoa has a huge future also from an environmental and a climate change perspective, deep roots. So when you plant cocoa trees in fields or even on the hillsides it helps hold the soil and it actually is much more resilient to the wind. So incentives to farmers then, how do we now begin to change that mindset and the idea now that banana is really a cash crop, turnover pretty high. So for those farmers who or anybody else may be thinking about entering farming, how do you incentivize them? So again, I'm not as experienced as the minister of agriculture. We're very very blessed to have somebody like him who is as experienced as he is at the helm of agriculture. But certainly in my time in Sufrere and now my time in Miku and meeting with the farmers there you see the same story right where people decide based on the weather patterns and their need for cash as to what crop they're going to produce. They all sit there and dream about how much money they're going to get for this crop. When it's produced they find out a lot of other people have thought the same way and they're stuck having to try to sell this product. And many times they either cannot sell it or are selling it under what their production price is. And that tells you the commitment that they have to the sector but the problem is that young people are not getting involved in the industry because they're not seeing where the profit is. So the program that the ministry of agriculture has started with seven crops is to say okay in order for us to do import substitution meaning that we don't have to import these crops means we have to produce it on a year-round basis. Your hotels and your consumers are eating tomatoes on a year-round basis, they're eating lettuce on a year-round basis, they're eating cabbage on a year-round basis, eating watermelon on a year-round basis. But sadly we cannot produce it and as we were being told today the peak of the tourism sector time which is your November until April is when in fact they can produce the least amount. So this is where now we must introduce technology. So we must get into green housing in order to be able to produce these crops on a year-round basis. The other thing is is that we know what the consumption of tomatoes, lettuce and these products are almost a hundred percent. So let us give contracts now to the farmers. So a farmer no longer is going to be speculating as to what he should produce. Farmers are qualified and certified farmer by the ministry of agriculture, by the extension officers and then they will be given a contract and they know what price they're going to get for their product and we're going to continue to work with them in improving their capacity. What this will do now is means that when they go to the bank it can present the bank with the contract, they can present the bank with their certification and also the bank knows if there's any problems that there are the extension officers as well as a central distribution point to be able to facilitate those farmers so to take out the risk of what currently is taking place. Saint Vincent and Dominica have done a great job of having a boat and bringing products now to the northern islands and when Dominica went through the hurricane we were able to penetrate some of those markets. So we want to do is to have export Saint Lucia working with the marketing board to look at making sure that we develop and strengthen those markets for us. So Barbados and Gwilla, Antigua, Saint Bart's, BVI and even up to the U.S. Virgin Islands there is a market opportunity but the key is to make sure there's a weekly boat and we understand what the production is coming in. We're getting into such detail that we can actually have monitors that are there that tells us whether in fact the product is being produced on time and in order to be able to get to the distribution company to let them know what's coming up. The other part that the ministry of our culture wants to introduce is packaging. So if we're going to now collect all of this stuff there's some stuff that we can now process for the for the grocery stores. So the wrapping that you see on them or slicing them, taking the pineapple and cleaning the pineapple and putting the slices. So to do that now at a central station in which there is added value and because of the volume that that makes it much more competitive for us to do. Now you mentioned there the seven crop program very very important because that is really designed to offset this huge import bill that we're having and food import bill and especially in the very crops that you mentioned cabbage lettuce watermelon and cantaloupe bell peppers pineapple and tomatoes. When you think of the impact this program can have on generating the generating the economy on the sort of ground level and also cutting the food import bill you excited by that by those prospects? I'm very very excited but let's not fool ourselves. The food import bill is always going to be high because of one of the industries we're in which is tourism. So there are clearly products that I don't see us producing gin I don't see us producing a lot of alcohol there are a lot of products that we depend on that will always be but the fact is that there are products that we can produce here and so if we can make it cheaper for them to bring in some of the other products and allow them to pay the hotels to pay a higher price for some of others so that they can be proper profit a reasonable profit in the sector this is where the win-win situation starts coming now once we start developing that expertise the key here is agri-processing if in fact we can find things that we can do with those products and we can create special ingredients so barons as an example using peppers right and coming up with a special recipe right now improves or increases the amount that we need to be able to consume because it's being consumed in another product and this is really where the huge win-win situation will become and that if we now have people producing our culture and the technologies we have in some cases these are not full-time jobs so what this is a way for a family to be able to augment its family income by having an investment in something in which they can share and make sure they're going to be taking care of okay let's quickly talk about the fishing sector what's happened in there there was a lot of debate publicly regarding the fish markets in cooperation a lot of the the fisher folk not certain about what was really going to happen to their livelihood as a result are you satisfied now we've gone through that process of restructuring that we're beginning to see what the potential for that sector can be yeah you know fishing requires change so the system that we had before farmers just going out I mean fishermen going out for a couple of hours catching some fish selling it to who they wanted to and whatever was left over bringing it to the fishing marketing board or the fish fish board to purchase these products and when they were purchasing it they were purchasing it at a market price and then they were freeze blasting it and the cost of freeze blasting it and therefore the the fishing complex was never making any money ever and the product had deteriorated to the point where a refrigerator was not working properly the washrooms and the facilities were in deplorable conditions a new person has come in a solution uh Karen Fontenard and has made a significant investment now the irony here was here is this lady coming in making this investment and all of a sudden the Ministry of Health was not passing her certification people that were purchasing fish from the fishing board before now all of a sudden we're requiring health certification and so it's not been an easy transition for her but she's continued to make the investments in you can see how much better the facilities are looking and simple things like understanding that the space between the building and the waterfront you could make into restaurants very much like oysters and thing and you have all these tourists that are walking by that location so sometimes that's the business innovation that it's just difficult for government to do that they can see an opportunity but difficult for them to take that advantage so the role of government really is to improve and help fishermen do a better job of fishing and when you capture fish how do you clean it and therefore whether in fact we are some fish that is better for us to export it and import other types of fish because it's cheaper so this is the process we're going to be going through in no way are we abandoning our fisher folk and the government remains absolutely committed with them but we've got to be able to expand and change how the fishing industry was here in solution this is the first part of our special production I'll sit down with the Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney looking back at 2019