 Special good morning to you, our viewers watching from home in St. Lucia, our residents in St. Lucia as well as St. Lucia's living in the diaspora watching on air and online. We do hope that you have had a restful weekend, a festive weekend in celebration of our mothers from the comfort and safety COVID-19-wise of your own home. My name is Jesse Leance and I'm joined in studio by my colleague Carlton Cyril as usual for the morning update to the St. Lucia COVID-19 response report for today. We are live from the Information Command Center at the GIS Studios live on NTN and we do hope you continue to stay tuned for the latest updates this morning. We did have quite a packed week in the last week or so. We haven't had any development over the weekend from the Ministry of Health and Wellness in terms of cases and whatnot. But we do hope as this week progresses, we will get some word, some developments on the state of COVID-19 management on Ireland. To date, we continue to have only 18 COVID-19 cases, 17 so far having been recovered and our fingers are crossed that we can once again boast of a 100% recovery rate in due time. We also have word and that there is testing. Testing is ongoing. If anything, it has increased so far. The Ezra Long Laboratory here on Ireland has become well equipped, better equipped to roll out testing as quickly as possible as we continue to respond to the effects of COVID-19 and the suspected cases of COVID-19 being reported to the respiratory clinics throughout the island. Thank you so much, Jessie. Well, for now, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased to 18. 18 people have been tested for COVID-19 positive. 17 have recovered and our fingers are crossed that we can once again boast of a 100% recovery rate in due time. We are in a good position, but we are waiting for all the people who have received information about COVID-19. The health department, the CMO, the government, and everyone who has been tested for COVID-19, we cannot live a normal business. We are fighting for COVID-19. That is why we are always here to change the protocol, to change the environment, to change the public mass, to make it a social distance. We are always here to fight for COVID-19. We are here to change it, which is very important. But apart from that, the development we have been doing, we have been saying thank you so much to these people in our country, who follow us, to these people who are on the internet, who are listening to us on the radio. We are always here to help people, but we are always here to give them information, depending on the situation, and COVID-19. And then, when we are here, we are always here. I am Carlton Cyril Plimer, I am from Cox, and I am here to help people. I am here to continue to give them information. Thank you very much for that. This morning, we have a chief economist, Mr. Tommy Descarte, from the Economic Development Department. He will be coming in to sit with us, to speak to us. Among other matters, we have the medium-term development strategy of the government of St. Lucia that was launched way before the full blow of COVID-19 globally. And we are going to be speaking to him on how the government is going to be implementing, rolling out this medium-term development strategy in the face of COVID-19. So we do hope that you can stay tuned for that. Mr. Descarte was also a feature presenter on the panel discussion that was held last night. And I'll just give you some information on that panel discussion, if you did not have a chance to watch live on NTN last night. COVID-19 roadmap to recovery, the role of investment. And this, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a lasting impact on investment and the economy. We continue to review the economic impact of the pandemic on St. Lucia, whilst also charting the road to recovery. And the panel of experts weighed in on a subject matter, including the state of the economy, building financial resilience, investment prospects, initiatives and support for local investment, financial expenditure and development projects. St. Lucia's medium-term development strategy, as I mentioned earlier, and new opportunities for the various sectors in St. Lucia. The usual moderator, Titus Preville, we had Mr. Frank Meyers, a chartered accountant and deputy chairman of the National Insurance Corporation. We also had Ms. Karen Fontenel-Peter. She's the president of the Chamber of Commerce, as well as the general manager of Caribbean metals. And we had Mr. Tommy Descartes, as mentioned, and Alana Lansico-Brice. She is the investment services manager at Investor St. Lucia. And she gave sort of an insight as to where things are headed. Well, why should say accelerated for invest St. Lucia post-COVID, or as we recover from COVID. Let's take a look at her first clip. In terms of promotion and attraction, it's going to be ferocious. That's what we intend to do. Highly competitive in terms of what it's going to look at post-COVID. So when I say post-COVID, I say maybe six months from now. First of all, companies have to deal with their cash flow needs. So that's the immediate issue right now. And then Invest St. Lucia, like other investment promotion agencies around the world, will be trying to secure the pipeline project that I've already committed to St. Lucia and to your respective country because you need to get them implemented quickly because finance can move very quickly. Finance that was committed to a project today may not be there six months from now. And she also mentioned some of the critical areas that St. Lucia will need to look at, looking at ICT and so on. In terms of strengthening those areas to be able to facilitate investment in the country. It's going to be facilitation to make sure those projects come through the pipeline quickly. They can start construction and then it's also going to be a focus like every other country in the world on ICT and the digital economy because this pandemic has brought things to light that we probably knew already but weren't actioning quite as ferociously as we should but now there is a need to accelerate that even further. So ICT investment and working on investments or partnerships that will enhance the skills of our workforce that's something we hear a lot about locally and internationally because businesses want a location that can provide a solution to their needs. So skills training that is going to be important and then we're going to have to look at how we can transform St. Lucia not just as a tourism service economy but generally as a business services economy, non-tourism. We already have that kind of business happening here. So the business outsourcing sector is here. The largest companies employed pre-COVID approximately 1500 people and for the most part they were able to retain most of their employees because they were able to deploy their staff to work from home because their homes had the ICT infrastructure, they had the Wi-Fi they were able to provide personal computers and they actually saw more work coming in because these are companies that assist with healthcare providers in the U.S. Find banks and other financial institutions in the U.S. So that is what it's going to be like. It's going to be ferocious, it's going to be very competitive. So we have to be in a place to move quickly. That was Ms. Alana Lansico-Brice, one of the panelists at last night's panel discussion live on NTN speaking on the role of investment and if we take a look at things Carlton we will be seeing increased competition globally for investment into the various economies so hopefully St. Lucia can secure and maintain its investment prospects right now going into our recovery to over well for us overall. Definitely, I'll just say another part of this. When it relates to her comments, one of the things she said which I think is very important is not only identifying the investment but when it comes through how fast we get it out into the public, how fast it is materialized is very important and of course we have to remember when we brought in Mr. Narciss he was saying we have DigiGov and we hand those investments it's one thing to say the investments but it's one thing of putting it in place because definitely another aspect of what she just said in last night's discussion when it comes to we are not the only ones in the global community added to that remember tourism being our backbone now we have to see okay what do we do and how do we go ahead you know coming back or putting our foot as we say it back on the ground. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely and just to go back to yesterday's last night's panel discussion I mean it was established that the cash flow crisis we have the cash bond salary proposal being made by government how do we now go about taking advantage of investment in St. Lucia how does the government begin to attract foreign investors to St. Lucia to ensure that we can continue to you know stay buoyant economy wise so these topics and more we will go into detail with them with Mr. Tommy Descartes this morning discussing all of the facets socio-economic all of the facets that will impact the way we do business it will certainly not be business as usual you know coming out of COVID-19 if you look at all of the forecasts some of which are I dare say very optimistic when you look at the very grim situation that we're facing in terms of the revival of sectors the revival of economies I mean the most concerning one the one that we're looking at most is the revival of tourism you know what level of consumer confidence will there be in terms of persons coming back to the islands and taking advantage of our sun sea and sand you know so there's several factors that need to be taken into consideration and as we heard from Mr. Descartes the medium-term development strategy of the government of St. Lucia is flexible in that way that it is agile in that it is possible for it to adjust to the varying effects of COVID-19 so we will be speaking to Mr. Descartes this morning we do hope you can stay tuned for that delving into the medium-term development strategy of St. Lucia as we begin to recover from COVID-19 we are due for our first break when we come back we go over some updates for this morning and we will be going into the interview with Mr. Descartes do stay tuned because of how quickly the coronavirus spreads each new case calls for increased public vigilance know what is happening understand why and comply think of the protocols as war tactics personal protection tactics keep six feet away from others avoid riding the bus gathering on beaches in bars and shops public protection tactics quarantine yourself if you feel fluid in case you have been exposed call 311 or a respiratory clinic for advice country tactics, fashion lockdown supermarkets, small grocers, pharmacies and ATMs are accessible before COVID-19 total lockdown everywhere stays closed 24-7 for a stipulated period team tactics don't only follow the protocols be a protocols police let's win this often used hand sanitizer better yet use soap and water we must protect each other if we are to beat this corona together let us win this dear soldier, force and rule show together let us win this war dear soldier, together we can beat this corona so you don't become the next case avoid touching your face I'm sure you've been told so and shakes and hugging her up no, no advice is better let us win this war so you don't become a soldier together we can beat this corona for further information please contact the hotline at 311 or the Bureau of Health Education at 468-5349 this case is registered for COVID-19 and it is a movement to prevent this every person who is fighting for public religion do not go to public places like Bolame Bas, Tiputik Changer, distance social 6 feet, Rodionalot if you are in a city like Opa Kodeal Quarantine Call, Partware Contact, and Lot, and Cauté Toipe Esposé. C'est un écouiller, Free 1-1-O-B, n'est pas clinique, y'a pas eu. Les pays à demi-aclés, ça vous l'a dit, les supermarkets, pharmacies, et puis ATM, y'aux accessables avant cet été. Pays à clés en plein, ça vous l'a dit, tout bagai fermé, à 24h. S'est mis protocol, comme sorti pas biwo, édication santé. Nous tout ensemble, ça sauve, v'émin Corona, si nous tout, c'est vie, jidla, à toutes les. These are my new superheroes, that's why they are always in masks. Doing everything they can to keep everyone in St. Lucia safe. You don't think we know who you are, but we see you every single day. You are my friend's dad, my uncle, my father, my best friend's mom, my aunt, and the guy next door. You are the best of all of us, working together to save the world. Not all superheroes get to wear capes, but you might have noticed they're all wearing masks. So be a hero, and wear one too. Stay safe, your digital family. Thank you so very much for staying tuned. This is the COVID-19 response report for St. Lucia this morning. We are live from the Information Command Center at the Government Information Studios. Thank you so much for staying tuned. We now continue our programming this morning with an interview, as promised, with the Chief Economist, Mr. Tommy Descartes. A pleasant good morning to you. Good morning, good morning. I just want to start with, for all our viewers, to ensure that we have a comprehensive understanding from beginning to finish. Can you give us a state of the economy as at COVID-19? What are we facing right now? All right, so Jesse, the COVID pandemic is unprecedented in many ways. Firstly, it's a global, so everybody is impacted, and honestly, St. Lucia so doesn't look up. It is a public health crisis, as well as an economic crisis. And so what we've seen is our main economic driver, tourism sector, has taken a nose dive in a sense, sort of a flat-lining with no tourist arrivals, almost zero tourist arrivals, and that has resulted in the hotels laying off almost 13,000 individuals within a couple of weeks. That clearly has implications for unemployment. And so the government now, and also the issue around tax revenues, because that is a critical issue for the government. And so the overall, and in the context of COVID, one of the ways to mitigate or the impact is to have the social distance in protocols in place, which seriously mitigates activity, economic activity. And so you see that a lot of firms have shut down their doors. And so the ripple effect is dire. I mean, we are trying to sort of understand the magnitude, but really we don't even fully understand because of the lot of uncertainty around COVID, because you may wake up tomorrow morning and then there's a vaccine, you know. And so there's a lot of uncertainty. And so we know, initially pre-COVID, San Jose was expected to grow by 3.5%. And that was very good. Post COVID, the figures are now close to a contraction of 8.5%, and other persons are saying it may be closer to 18%. I mean, can you imagine what an 18% contraction in your economy is going to look like? So that has implications for jobs. That has implications for tax revenues. And so it's a very difficult time. And also, given that everybody's facing it at the same time, there's some what everybody's trying on their own. So you look at the US, the US is clearly having issues. And again, I think the government also in this context have constrained fiscal space. We know that. I mean, the government don't have the kind of monies to pump in granted that the government is trying in terms of giving income support and so on. But that is something that is clearly not sustainable. And so we really have to manage, and given the uncertainty around COVID, the question is we will have to learn to live with COVID for some period of time. So Jesse, I would say that the situation currently is dire, and as we try to understand the impact of COVID and monitor the economy, it is certainly a very dire situation for us in this country at this point. Okay, we're still trying to figure out our way going through COVID. But thousands forced on the breadline, businesses on the brink of collapse within just weeks of the Prime Minister indicating that the country would be closed, state of emergency and so on. What indications does that provide on what our state of economy was all this time? Well, certainly what COVID has done is that COVID has exposed and brought to light some of the inherent structural vulnerabilities in our economy. And so it really has shown us that some of the key issues in our, the ability of our private sector, how robust and strong our private sector is. But granted, I mean, the biggest companies in the world are facing the challenges. So it really shows that there are a lot of structural vulnerabilities that we will live in if all along. But COVID is almost as a case, someone who had pre-existing conditions of diabetes and so on, being exposed to COVID now, you become particularly at risk and even you may lose your life. So it's something akin to that that there are a lot of vulnerabilities in the economy and COVID has come into this shock, both at a global and at a domestic level. And we see in the repercussions and the consequences of that now. And going back to being now in COVID-19, I want to talk about the trade-off between the health situation and economic measures. Tell us about that very slippery slope, that balancing act that the government has to consider. Yeah, and that's a very tough decision and like you said, a balancing act because on one hand, first and foremost, you need to save lives. And then you look at livelihoods. So the government has had to introduce very drastic social distancing measures and that includes shutting down your economy. So you're both on the supply side in terms of your firms. These close contact, non-essential firms and companies cannot operate and on the demand side, households have limited ability to go out and go to bars and restaurants and so on. So you're contracting the economy significantly. And that's one of the questions. The question now is how long will we continue to have this policy stance? And what is this sort of implications? I mean, at this point, your economy is seriously hemorrhaging and this is not just an internal thing. You have now the external factor of the tourism sector. You don't have tourism at the same time. But the government now has some constants. It has to be its salaries, it has to services debt. So there are a lot of issues and now with the significant amount of persons being laid off, the government now has to come as a last resort and give some sort of income support to at least guarantee a minimum expenditure of these persons during this period of COVID in the immediate time as we see. Okay. And we've seen some of the measures that the government of Sinusha has taken in terms of business continuity. We've seen the public service moving, many persons staying at home to work and even getting reports from Ms. Peggy Ansudat that there has been increased productivity due to that. Certainly a look again at how we do business in Sinusha going forward. Also, we're seeing the government propositioning the unions on this situation with the cash and bond salaries. Can you speak to some of the measures that the government is now putting forward to try to stay afloat in this COVID-19 situation and what is it doing for the government in terms of saving off cash flow issues and so on? Yeah, so the government, you would notice has treated this in terms of a triage approach in a sense that the first phase you deal with the public health and social distancing. And as a result of that, we saw the layoffs and all the things that's actually happening. The government now brought in the social stabilization packages in terms of the income support and NIC coming in and helping persons who were contributors and given that sort of support. And the government is seriously thinking at also assisting non-NIC contributors, persons in the informal sector. So Sinusha has a lot of persons who don't work in a formal type of economy, but they work as small, perhaps small bars and so on. So the government is also looking at it and there's the issue around given support to these in terms of liquidity. You really don't want firms going under in a sense and with the intention that they will be able to retain some of their stuff. And the thing is, the policies that you implement now is critical in that it will help and determine to what extent, how quickly you will recover as a economy. Because if your private sector gets seriously damaged from this, when the time comes that there's an all-clear with the whole situation on COVID are subsided, you still want to have a private sector intact that can now continue and absorb that excess supply of labor that you have in the economy. So some of the policies are currently under construction. Jesse, the government has put together an economic recovery and resilience strategy. That's a multi-stakeholder team of both private sector and public sector individuals who are now seriously looking at what are the options that is available to the government and within the constraints that it faces and as best as possible, how to minimize the impact of COVID and the hemorrhaging that we see is actually happening now as a result of COVID. At the two panel discussions that have been held so far, manufacturing and even agriculture, they've been identified as two of the major sectors and the services sector to really bring St. Lucia out of this, to revive St. Lucia sort of, resuscitate the economy. Can you speak to the role that manufacturing, I think we could start with manufacturing, it plays in terms of its role in the economy and how it can help revive our economy post COVID? So certainly the manufacturing sector is critical to this recovery strategy in St. Lucia and I think on the issue of food security and the rule that it plays in ensuring we have food security in St. Lucia, the manufacturing sector has tremendous potential because it has a sort of a labor intensive, it can absorb a lot of labor. However, the manufacturing sector has struggled from a number of challenges and a lot of it is doing business. I mean, for instance, we know that it's the perennial issue of energy, the cost of energy, which is one of the things that the manufacturing sector has as climate to a large extent is impacting on the productivity. There are other cases where we see thriving manufacturing sectors globally and if you realize a lot of them have access to liquidity, so they export import banks that the China, Taiwan, Australia, even the US that provides that sort of liquidity to the manufacturing sector to help them export the products into the export market. Again, there's a lot of issues around competitiveness, how competitive the price and the quality of the manufactured goods here. And so that's an ongoing discussion, but I certainly think that COVID has sort of given both the government and the private sector a sort of a nudge that we need to act and these sectors that agriculture and the manufacturing sector, we need to sort of try to strengthen the linkages between the agriculture sector and the manufacturing sector to have that kind of strong linkage between them. And so COVID is now, let's say, we've been talking about this thing for a long time, let's put action and see how we can transform. And like you indicated, that sort of, we have a sort of a concentration risk on tourism. A lot of our, the tourism sector contributes the largest economy. And so now, if we can now diversify our economy and put a stronger focus on agriculture and manufacturing, which is kind of limit the risk that we're seeing as a result of emanating from a tourism dependent type of economy that we have in San Jose now. Okay. And we have seen so far government using, it's trying to stimulate the agriculture sector. We've seen the national meals program. In terms of manufacturing, can you speak to, I know you did a bit last night. Can you speak to how government can use its expenditure to boost the manufacturing sector? That's something that I totally agree to. I think that government can leverage its expenditure and procurement policies as a lever to strengthen the manufacturing sector. For instance, we have case in points, they see maybe beds, medical beds. You would need mattresses and so on. So perhaps you would want to buy that from Lubeco, which is a local producer of this kind. The government produces furniture, office equipment and so on. If you have a manufacturing sector that produces this, the government could leverage some of its expenditure to somehow to help the manufacturing sector. And there are a number of other ways that could happen, but having a dedicated policy. And I was told that on one of the panelists last night that there is a cabinet conclusion that states that mandates that before we procure anything outside of the country, that we ought to see whether it's available internally within the economy. And to procure that. So perhaps it's a time when we need to relook that policy and at least greater emphasis on how do we stimulate. Because that's what you really want. One of the issues we've had is that our economy is very open. And so a lot of because we import so much, monies are, there's a lot of leakage out of the economy. And if you can now purchase more and the government can act as a one that procures more from the private sector, the manufacturing sector that would certainly stimulate the economy, especially now, Jesse. Okay. Effect on the demographics. I think the most relevant that I can apply to St. Lucia based on the conversations that we've been having from here is my person's returning home. Can you speak to some of the effects that this can have on our economy? Person's returning home, a lot of persons repatriated. A lot of persons who were abroad being sustained employment on the cruise ships. Now have to come home unemployed. Speak to that dynamic. Yeah. I mean, this is another very interesting dynamic, Jesse, because one of the things that St. Lucia, one of the policy that St. Lucia was pushing was to export its people in a sense. So you export them onto the cruise ship, you export your human capital and so on. And now, given that this is a global pandemic and the cruise sector is particularly hit, and now you now have to repatriate these people back into your economy. The hope is that we will see the cruise sector bouncing back rather quickly. And so these persons can now go back. I have a sister who's actually working on a cruise ship. Fortunately, she came in a week before we closed down our borders and so on. And so she's been keeping me updated as to what the cruise, her particular cruise ship has been communicated to her. And then, so there's a sort of an understanding maybe by August, hopefully, I think that that it will, you know, hopefully start that process and employing persons and so on. But I think on the unemployment side, one of my concerns is that perhaps the number of persons that are unemployed now and the layoffs, when the economy recovers, you will not see the same number of persons being re-employed. And it could mean a case where, so let's assume in the tourism sector, you had 13,000 persons. It may be a case that the tourism sector will see, you know, maybe I'll be cautious and not employ a full 13,000, I'll re-employ you. So that would mean a case where persons are becoming structurally unemployed as a result of COVID, for instance. And that was similar to what happened in the banana industry when we, the whole preferential trade, we lost that preferential access and we were moving to the services sector in terms of tourism. There are persons who just did not have the skill sets to move transition into the services sector. And so it's critical now that we focus on retooling and reskilling a large subset of our sector, you know, because face it, work, as we know it, will change drastically once possible. There are companies now who have gone online and doing remote working and they're saying, they've seen increasing productivity. And they're saying, me, perhaps I don't need to invest significantly in a plant or a space, brick and mortar. And so a lot of emphasis has now been placed on the digital economy and so on. And I do know that from San Lucia's perspective, we've started a lot of these. So we had a DG Gov initiative, which looks at automating a lot of the services that's in them. And at the time, we did not have the COVID scenario in place, Jesse. So it shows now, we were looking at probably from a productivity standpoint, how can we use ITC to become more productive as a country? But we see now the issue of COVID, it helps significantly and you need to fast track that. Upskilling our private sector. You know, a lot of our private sector don't have some basic ICT skills and so on and that kind of thing. And even an emphasis on financial transactions, you know, the banking sector, you know, I know the banks have been trying to do this online banking with mobile banking. And there's some of you still see a significant amount of persons still going into the banks, you know, along lines, you know. So I think now COVID is going to force a cultural change. Persons who are that sort of technofob and trying to stay away from technology will be forced to embrace the technology. But also the private sector now needs to, they have to survive. And if they do not transition using technology, we may see a significant amount of our private sector going on. So it's a very dynamic time, Jesse. But I think COVID has presented a tremendous opportunity for us to do the things that we've been talking about for a long time now. Okay. Also, we spoke about persons coming back unemployed, having worked abroad, but you have second and third generation solutions, perhaps, who, you know what, this COVID-19 situation, let me just come back at my home. And they have funds, capital, they want to make investments into the country. Can you speak to that as well? Certainly, I think the diaspora, I mean, kind of sisters, you know, I do know my wife's mom, you know, her family literally lives in the U.S. And my wife was telling me that she was saying, well, you know what, I need to come back here, you know, and so on. And people are saying, well, you know, that sort of, you know, so perhaps it's something that we may see actually happen, Jesse, in terms of sort of a repatriation of persons who have been in the diaspora for a significant amount of time, and they're coming back with possibly capital that they can invest. But also ideas, they've been exposed to a lot of things, you know, and so. So that's a possible, maybe an unintended, a positive effect that could emanate out of COVID. And that will certainly help because you have these persons who are coming in. But let's hope that they come in with the requisite skill sets and resources that they can help and not sort of a be a burden, you know, in a sense. So that's something that we have to be mindful of. Speaking of which, you have in St. Lucia, we had a caller last night, well, you guys had a caller talking about the section of the population that is unemployable, unskilled, having some persons not having savings to be able to tide this situation. Can you speak to now this effect on and being a burden sort of, you know, to the government? Well, I think, I mean, I don't, the government doesn't want to see that person's being a burden, you know. How we- Economic wise. Yeah, yeah, I mean, so what we want to do is that we want your human capital is critical to any development. And so we want to ensure that persons, we optimize our human capital. So recognizing that there are certain persons who are unemployable and don't have these necessary skill sets to be of any value to the labor market. The government has taken a robust a policy stance on technical vocation education. Okay. And in our medium term development strategy on our under the education pillar, we focus a lot on retooling a large segment of our population. So one of the clear targets that we have is by the end of the medium term development strategy cycle, which ends in 2023, we want at least 7,500 young persons, well, not necessarily young persons, but persons in general, to be trained in TVET in some sort of a skill. Okay. And that's a critical thing, you know. But also we get an additional support for the EU for TVET related. There's a TVET policy that I know that has already been approved and so on. So there's that sort of while we understand that there are a lot of persons who don't have the skill sets. The government is taking a very deliberate and decisive policy action where we are going to retool and train. And now, even more so with the COVID scenario, moving not beyond TVET, but the issue of the digital economy, getting persons to become more IT savvy and leveraging ICT. There's whole thrust around big data and AI, artificial intelligence. And these are, you can work remotely anywhere in the world if you are an expert in these areas. And these are high-paying jobs. So I think that we are with COVID as prisoners opportunity to restructure our economy and look at services but high-value services in TVET and also in ICT and so on. Okay. We are speaking to Mr. Tommy Descartes, the chief economist at the Economic Development Department. When we come back, we will be touching on and getting into the meat of things in terms of the medium-term development strategy that was launched here in February, as well as the country financing roadmap. And that will help in terms of funding for the MTDS, right? Okay, do stay tuned for that and more. We're live on NTN from the Information Command Center. We continue conversation on COVID-19 and its effect on St. Lucia going forward. Stay tuned. With all that's happening around us, simple adjustments are necessary to keep us all safe. When calling 911, we may need a little more information to deploy the right personnel and protocols. You may be asked about your travel history, signs and symptoms, contact and movement history, and whether others in your household are exhibiting similar symptoms. Please be patient and cooperative during this time to ensure you receive the best possible care while keeping our first responders safe. Thank you so very much for staying tuned. We are, as I say, waist deep into our program this morning. The COVID-19 response report we have in studio, Mr. Tommy Descartes, chief economist at the Economic Development Department. And he's been speaking to us on the effects of COVID-19, the state of our economy right now. I think there may be some persons who are now making adjustments, but some for those who have not yet adjusted or understood the stark reality of things, it's not looking good. And as the word he used to describe it is that our economy, things are looking dire in the face of COVID-19. Of course, the government of St. Lucia has put in place measures in terms of the medium-term development strategy that is coinciding with the onset of COVID-19. And we hope that this arsenal can be used to help us stay buoyant in this world and keep our economy buoyant as we go through the recovery process. Before we go into the medium-term development strategy and all that surrounds it, just want to hand over to Carlton to give a summary and engagements to the Descartes on what we've been speaking on so far. Carlton. Okay, I'll try to make myself clear. Yes, yes, yes, I'll try to make myself clear. So, a shimon serve that people can depend on tourism. A tourism sector can employ a shimon. Yes, yes, that's right. Okay, and when COVID-19 is done, we don't have to go on a vacation, we don't have to go on a vacation. So, these hotels are for the money business, but it's still closed, so you have to leave the world with a shimon. As a result, I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to explain it, I don't know how to explain it, I don't know how to explain it. How to... Other than that, the government is a family. So, that means you have to go to the other side of the road to go to a restaurant. Everything is closed. You're a family. Yes, you're a family. If you work there, you're not allowed to work. So, in that situation, if you work, you're not allowed to... Lage. Lage. You're not allowed to work. You're not allowed to work. So, the government is in a situation, it's not allowed to help these people. So, the government is coming to buy food, buy food for the people here, buy food for the people here. The government is working on this business. But, before Covid-19, we had to grow. To grow our crops. To grow our crops. But, we had to approach 3%. That would have meant that a lot of activities were not allowed to work, construction was not allowed. Tourism was not expected to be allowed to come. So, we were not allowed to work. With Covid-19, everything was allowed. Without the expectation to come, without the need to work. So, it's a situation that we're not allowed to work at a standstill. And the government has policies to make sure that we're going through a health crisis. Because you just imagine, if we take the U.S. line in Italy, we're not going to be able to work here. So, the government has policies and actually, as a result of that, the government realized that the economy is female. It's not a female. So, we're going to look at policies that the government has tried. The government has tried an economic recovery strategy that will be used in the during the pandemic. And hopefully, with Covid-19, we can continue the development of the country. Okay. So, we're going to look at that. We're going to look at the end of the pandemic. That's it. Everyone has to work. As a result of Covid-19, we have to depend on the tourist sector. Because we have to come to the construction and activities that have been done in the country. Covid-19 has come to the end. And not only that, the government has to put policies in place. We have to make it right, because when they start in the cinema, when they start in the restorer, we have to provide the money to the activity. So, it's all about the government. We have to work in the budget department, because we don't have to pay all the money. We don't have to work on a whole market. Because we have to work on the budget that is important. So, we have to come to the office big to handle for small island developing states like St. Lucia, already reeling from climate-related challenges, the toll on the tourism sector. Can you speak to us about what is in the arsenal for St. Lucia in terms of giving this COVID-19 a good fight? Sure. So the Department of Economic Development, Transparency and Civil Aviation has demanded to develop national development planning for St. Lucia. So what is our long-term trajectory in terms of where we want our country to go, the structure of our economy. It is also responsible for what we call the public sector investment program. So what you see that is featured in your annual budgets, projects that forms part of your PSIP, which would have emanated out of your medium-term development strategy. So the Department of one of the questions that has now been posed to us is you have a medium-term development strategy, like you have indicated, was launched on February 27th. Well, COVID was just becoming a new thing to us. In our neck of the woods. In our lexicon, nobody, and so on. And so now the question is, how do we continue and how relevant is our MTDS now in this context? And I want to say that the MTDS was built on the tagline economic growth on the arise. And the arise here is accelerated, resilient, inclusive, sustainable and equitably shared growth. So we wanted accelerated growth. Historically, our growth has been very low and volatile just 2%, 1.5%. And that is really not the kind of growth that you want to be able to impact the standard of living of your people in a very meaningful way. So we focus a lot on how do we go into accelerate that and push. So we hoping that we could have gotten 4%, 5%, and 6% growth consistently over 4, 5, 10 years. And that would change the situation on the ground significantly. The nature of resilience. And what we saw was that climate resilience was a big thing. And one of the things that when we were putting this document together, we said, what are the risks that we'll be facing? And obviously climate was up there. We know that the impact of Thomas, we had seen what the impact of Maria and Erica would have had on our neighboring islands. And we know definitely climate resilience had to be on. But not in our wireless, wireless dreams that we thought that pandemic could have been, you know, but we also ensure that resilience for us is also meant that we had the document had to be agile. It had to be responsive. So yes, you've charted a course. But things are very dynamic. Things could change in a split second, as COVID has shown. The document had to be able to respond quickly. And COVID now presents us with an opportunity to do that. And so the medium to development strategy has a many of projects. And I could see that across six key results areas, three economic and three social infrastructure under the economic tourism and agriculture. And under the social is education, health, health care, and citizen security or citizen safety. A lot of these projects have already, we negotiated these projects with multilateral development agencies like the World Bank, the Carbon Development Bank. And so these are project financing. So we've guaranteed the financing for these projects. These projects are shovel ready in that a lot of the processes. And one of the things that when you are developing these sort of projects, there's a gestation period. You know, you have a project, you have a concept, project development, project appraisal, the banks, you know, have to see whether it's economically profitable and also financially profitable and so on. And so we've done a number of the projects in there. We've gone through that process. That has elapsed. And so we have gone through this process and we are about to now start implementation of projects. Added to that, I mean, that portfolio that we have now is concessionary in nature in that the loans are very, the interest rates on these loans are relatively low. We also have grace periods for these. So normally you would get a five-year grace period before you start to repeat these loans, which is a very good thing. And also it's good for our debt strategy in that we're now trying to move away from market debt on bonds and so on and to go towards more loans which are longer term but with lower interest rates. And so that's critical. So for us, what we see in terms of the MTDS, Jesse, is that while we had a lot of our projects, the commencement date of this was a bit later down the road. We see an opportunity for us to fast-track. And so pretty much using the timing of our implementation and commencement projects as a sort of a stimulus to the economy now. So let's assume that you have maybe four or five big construction activities happening now. That's going to significant amount of construction. Persons are going to get employed. You see all the trucks carrying concrete and so on and that kind of thing. You see your backhoes at work and the multiplier effect that these persons now have income. They are now going to go and spend. Now the owners of these shops and retailers are now going to start re-employing people. And we see the MTDS having an ability to do that. And you have to think, well, if I did not have a very ambitious capital project, how do I now... So I think it has presented the government with a sort of a lifeline and a win-win in a sense, that you are helping us now smooth that. Put some more... And this is not revenue that the government has to get from tax revenues. These are loans and so on. And that can now help jumpstart the economy in the short term, but also the help with the long-term recovery of the country. So Jesse, we see the MTDS as being strategically placed now, if ever, to do that sort of support and providing that sort of stimulus. Because we do know that the government is now facing serious fiscal constraints, Jesse, in loss of taxes and so on as a result of the closure of the tourism sector. And so we believe that this provides a sort of support to the government and to the country at this current moment. Okay. I haven't taken a look at the document. I saw that there's a phase, plan for phased approach towards the implementation. Can you tell us about that? Well, certainly, I think in planning, you have to prioritize, you know, you have to sequence. So you have a host of projects, but you certainly can implement all these projects in one year. And so that's why the MTDS is over a four-year period. And so there's a phased approach where we prioritize the projects that we think that are and there are a number of criteria for determining that, in terms of the shovel readiness, the strategic importance of that particular project and how it complements other projects that you have in your pipeline. So there's been a very strategic approach to that. And so it's critical that we phase it out. And again, you have the capacity. You certainly can, maybe if you build in a hospital, you know, there's a significant amount of time to do that. So you need to phase it out in a very real way. I also want to point out, Jesse, one of the, quite apart from stimulating the economy, we use some projects that are in our capital to redirect towards the COVID response. Okay. So for instance, a number of our World Bank projects have what is called a contingency emergency response component. So it's a sort of a clause that says, in the eventuality of a natural disaster or an emergency, you can, you have access to a sum of money under that project. And some resources under that project can be reprioritized towards. So for instance, under a project that is directly under the Department of Economic Development, the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project, DVRP, we were able to reprioritize resources under that project of to the tune of 5.5 million U.S., which now goes towards the establishment of the respiratory hospital at VH. And also the isolation units in the north and the south of the area. So that has helped us to some extent. We've also had some discussions with some other projects in terms of reprioritizing some other projects. So we now have, there's one project in particular, it's the OECS Regional Tourism Competitiveness Project, which has initially get towards the William Peter Boulevard redevelopment and so on. And so there's discussions around maybe this can go to another project that can stimulate activity a lot faster and so on. So there's a thinking that you want to fast-track but repurpose some of your projects in a sense to the extent that you can. I think our initial discussions with the banks and World Bank and CDB said, well, there's some sort of a latitude, but the development focus of the project financing still has to remain. And so we don't have that latitude to so much as redirect as we want, but there's a sort of discussion around that. Okay. And the maneuvering to reappropriate funds in this way, I don't want to digress from the MTDS subject, but the rationale, there's some persons who are talking about, if I could go back to the salaries and the cash bonds proposal, can you speak on the rationale behind continuing to service and honor our debts? Because there's some person saying, well, there definitely is on the table the option to suspend servicing our debts to ensure that our people here are taken care of. And I know government has to move as very carefully as possible. Can you speak to the rationale behind that? So Jesse, obviously the issue around servicing your debt is an ongoing discussion now. The IMF and the World Bank are saying, perhaps the best policy now is for debt holders and so on to give a sort of debt relief to small island developing states, give them that sort of breathing space to respond to the COVID issue. So while persons are saying, well, perhaps we should look at taking not P in our debts, but that has to be done in a very coordinated way. And so if you decide you're not P in your debts, then it becomes a default in a sense. And a default has serious repercussions for your country in a sense. And so that's something that it's not a very straightforward thing. And I think the government has known that it's ordering its commitment to its debt holders in lieu of a formal arrangement. And obviously, Jesse, this thing happened so quickly. So there's a sort of challenge now to bring everybody to the table and have their discussions. But certainly, I think someone will think, well, maybe just don't pay your debt and service salaries. But I think the government in public financial management knows that you need to service your debt. Because I wanted to establish that there is deliberate thought behind the decisions that are taken in respect to that. We're going back to MTDS. The seven national development pillars at the top of it is building productive capacity, expanding growth opportunities. We see building strong institutions that are a platform for growth and development. Tell us some of the targets in the national development pillars at the moment. We have seven national development pillars. And Jesse, I don't have them before me now, but generally the focus is on your health care, productivity, infrastructure, resilience, climate. And so these pillars, again, Wales and Lausia does not have a long-term national development plan. And very few countries in the region actually have one. So you look at Jamaica, probably Trinidad, I think, who has a very long term talking about 20 or 30 years. But in repeated processes where we start to do national planning, we see that there's a recurring theme around the seven areas, Jesse. And so that has somewhat been the benchmark, the base of what we want. Productivity is critical. Diversifying your economy. Your human capital. Education is critical. Your skill sets and ICT and so on. So these are the fundamentals upon which this MTDS that we launched in February 27th is built on. And so perhaps I could, and I guess what the government did in the MTDS process was we sort of selected a narrow list of six curious areas. And on the call last night, well, the moderator was saying, well, energy is not really pleased there and so on. And so there are some areas that you realize that there's not dedicated commitment from the MTDS. Again, historically, our development approaches in terms of our national liberal plans, what we've seen is a sort of the government has taken prepared documents that have a whole host of interventions across a wide spectrum of sectors. What that creates is a sort of a prioritization failure. I give you all these and I've said over three years, you need to sort of remedy this. What actually happens is that you somewhat don't give dedicated attention to any one of these in a sense and to get that kind of transformational change that you want in the particular sector. So I think the wisdom behind the six key result is that you have resource constraints, both financial and human resource constraints. And let's zoom in on some of these key sectors and get a dedicated transmission, a real genuine and lasting transmission in that sector. In a sense, and also the focus was the structural issues. These are issues that are critical. For instance, you look at, I go back to the case of education. We've been hearing the case that persons are unemployable Jesse. That's been ongoing. So the government says we've heard this thing for a long time. This is an ongoing issue for quite some time. Let's deal with this now. Let's give it dedicated attention. The issue of healthcare, now we see that a lot of even COVID has shown that persons have pre-existent conditions and so on. So a strong focus on primary healthcare and preventative care is featured in the MTDS. And so the focus is both on economic access and physical access. So I may build wonderful hospitals with all the services. But then if the regular solution cannot afford access to services, so the system is not built. So the real intention of hospital is to give healthcare to individuals and if persons can. So the strategy looks at both the physical, improving the quality of healthcare that is provided, but also the ability of the average solution. And that's why there's a national health insurance framework as part of this. On the constructions, on the infrastructure side, focus on a lot of our road infrastructure. Rehabilitating a sizable amount of our road infrastructure. And with the lens from a climate resilience lens, Jesse, what I've seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Thomas, a significant amount of our road infrastructure was devastated. Now, you know, every time you go back and one of the areas that the government is grappling with, there's the debt that you accumulate to rebuild that infrastructure. Rehab. And that's not new capital, that's not new initiative, just replacing your existence. So a strong focus on climate resilience really is in infrastructure. Is that the forefront? A focus around expanding your airports and the capacity of your airports to carry a lot more tourists, your ports. These are critical infrastructure that would help change the trajectory of your economy. The issue around social citizen security, Jesse. You know, there's that perception. And I was just, you know, last night we were talking about that it is not just citizen security, but also business security. If you look at almost every business, have two or three guards posted securing, you know, their business and so on. So that's a lot of resources that perhaps our businesses could have taken to go into going digital, scaling up their digital and going into, but now they have to secure that from potential persons who would come in. And so that's a tremendous cause. Even in the case of agriculture, one of the issues for inhibitors for persons going into agriculture is that if I plant my food before I can harvest it, somebody comes and harvest it. You know, in my particular case, I have access to some land in a particular community and I wouldn't see cooks, you know. But I wouldn't go and plant anything on there because I know there's a uterus that somebody's going to come and just harvest. So the government has put this whole prediliciny front and center in that, you know, trying to get person say, we want you to go into agriculture, but we're also going to be very, very deliberate and try to stem the prediliciny issue that we are seeing in solution. I would have spoken to the education on the tourism side. The whole village tourism is a big thing in a sense that we now want to move away from just having these hotel plants, you know, that are somewhat insulated from the economy itself and now go to rural, you know, so in your communities, you now try to improve the quality of the tourism product that is offered there and that is the village tourism, which then links to your local rural community. So your fishery, so for instance, in the case of agriculture, ancillary, sorry, as a fishing community, how do you tie, if you have a very good product here, you can now tie that to your fisher folk and your agriculture folk and the general culture or in that community. So that's the first beyond and also a number of private sector related initiatives there also. Okay, wonderful. We are speaking to Mr. Tommy Descards, the chief economist and he was instrumental in the formulation of the medium-term development strategy that was just launched in St. Lucia February, of course coinciding with the onset of COVID-19 here on Ireland and overall globally. When we come back, we want to talk about how these efforts of the government of St. Lucia tie into our, meeting our sustainable development goals as well as other topics within that document. We're also going to talk about how we're going to fund much of the plans in this document. Do stay tuned. These are my new superheroes. That's why they're all wearing masks, doing everything they can to keep everyone in St. Lucia safe. You don't think we know who you are, but we see you every single day. You are my friend's dad, my uncle, my father, my best friend's mom, my aunt and the guy next door. You are the best of all of us, working together to save the world. Not all superheroes get to wear capes, but you might have noticed they're all wearing masks. So be a hero and wear one too. Stay safe. Your Digicel family. Thank you so very much for staying tuned. We are live on NTN from the Information Command Center at GIS. We continue with this morning's discussion, engagement with the chief economist, Mr. Tommy Descartes, on the state of the economy during this COVID-19 situation that we're going through and efforts to recover from COVID-19. We've been talking about the MTDS, the Medium Term Development Strategy of the Government of St. Lucia, introduced in February and coinciding with the onset of COVID-19. We're talking about how it can really help us, help boy St. Lucia as we try to come out of COVID-19. I want to hand over to Carlton to just help in the summarize or go over in Creole the discussion so far. A lot of sides have come to show Charles to talk about education, safety, and security in the country. The government has introduced COVID-19, not just COVID-19, but COVID-19. We're going to talk about the government's plan, how it can be done, and what it can do. We're going to approach it, we're going to continue with the two economic and three social. That's very important. The priority of the violence is to come out of the country with the same kind of We are going to change our experiences. We are going to do the same thing. We are not going to stop. We are not going to stop. We are going to make it happen. When you have these priorities, you are going to be able to come to the point where you are going to affect us. We are also going to be able to show how we are doing in this show. We are going to have to plant. We have all these considerations. Government has to plant. And that's what we are talking about which is a plant development. Not all of these governments but we are going to tell them that we are going to do this We are going to have to explain this. We are going to do good work. We are going to do good work. We are going to say that we are coming to the budget we are going to have to talk about what are we going to do with these plants. But we have to tell them who are they going to plant quickly. We are going to talk about the three stages that we are going to approach. the IMF. So Yes, the government has a plan. We plan to implement it in February, and we plan to implement it. We plan to start the year 2023. So we have a plan for four years. We plan to have six stages. Six stages? You are economic and you are social. You are economic and you are infrastructure. The government has a priority to make money. We plan to have three stages. One is the economy, one is the move, and the other is the hotel. We plan to have six stages. We plan to have five stages. We plan to have six stages. As we are in Horry, there's a big problem for the country. So, it's a problem, it's a problem by government, by pay-pay. So, government has to prioritize its resilient infrastructure. So, it's not that it's not the same as Hurricane Seishima or the Bacai Quasi. It's not that it's not the same. But, in fact, in Hurricane, it's eight hours. It's eight hours. But if you don't know what's going on, it's not that it's not the same as Hurricane Seishima or the Bacai Quasi. So, government has to keep its expression. And we also have to keep our airport. The airport needs to be upgraded. There's a runway, so-and-so. So, government has to expand the airport. So, it's not that it's not the same as Hurricane Seishima or the Bacai Quasi. And we also have to keep the issue of glow. Resilience, no, it's not that it's not the same as Hurricane Seishima or the Bacai Quasi. So, it's not that it's not the same as Hurricane Seishima or the Bacai Quasi. I'm not the kind of person who's been on social media for a long time. I'm COVID-19. So, I'm not the kind of person who's been on social media for a long time. Even after that, we have to keep our hands low. But, the issue is that government has to prioritize glow. So, they have to prioritize glow on the runway project. So, they have to prioritize glow on the runway project. So, it's not that it's not the same as the ARICOLTURE. Tourism, the government has to keep the village tourism. So, tourism is not about going to hotels or to the moon. I think it's very common to develop tourism in the social sector. It's possible to have a guest house. I think it's possible to have a grid guest house. It's possible to buy a grant. It's possible to have a market. So, actually you must buy some computer. Does it work on the book? Is it possible to do business with this? I think it's possible. I think it is. I think it's possible. It's possible to develop tourism in the social sector. We have a lot of friends who are working in the same company. And we are all of them. The government is very simple. The government has decided to set crops. You decide. You decide what you want. So, we have the same crops that we import here. And we also provide the same crop size. So, you can buy a size C pork around, it can produce, it becomes self-sufficient. So, it's a livestock. So, it has a lot of protein. So, it has chicken, chicken back, wings. It has a lot of protein. It has a lot of high-line. It has a lot of supply. So, it has a lot of energy, it has a lot of products. And local, local. So, people can go shopping, to help these people who are working in the chicken market. And we want to come here to produce food. And then we want to look at the social sector, so the education. We want to have young people who have these skills So, it's not like I work in the cell. I can do certain skills. It's a very safe computer. So, it's not like I work in the cell. Yes, because I'm a business man. I'm a business man. So, I plan to buy my skills later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Also, if you are going to university college or after Lewis, it's not like I work in the cell. But I focus on buying my skills. Yes, later. I buy my skills later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. Later. We talked about it before we went to Amdzi. We talked about the people who came here. Because it's a new company that has started to have a lot of people. And we have a lot of people here. And we have a lot of people who came out to serve people. We talked about the segment that came here and then Amdzi. So, we had a lot of people here. We were in a bad situation. We had a lot of people. We had to go to the cafe. So, it's not a plan. A plan that's not going to have a previous plan is that we decide who's going to implement it. So, we're going to have a shill, a full wall bank. So, it's not going to be ready to implement this project. So, in the context of COVID, who's going to continue to implement COVID? So, it's not going to be different. So, it's not going to be a tri-fail, so, this project, we're going to have a project that will start October. So, it's not going to be a project that will be completed more quickly. Maybe, not this month, so it's going to be a project that will be done in time. So, it's not going to be an employee, it's going to be a person, it's going to be a post-show, it's going to be done. So, it's not going to be MTDS. It's going to be a service for COVID situations. Okay. Welcome, Jessie. Thank you very much for that. We're running out of time, but I just want to talk about the funding of the MTDS. Can you just speak on how are we going to finance? I know you used to touch on it a bit, but zoom out on how we're going to finance the MTDS. So, again, the MTDS, when we develop the MTDS, deliberate effort was placed on the resources to implement your MTDS. Because you can always come up with an elaborate plan, but how feasible is that plan? If you don't have the financial resources to do so. So, we worked very closely with the Caribbean Development Bank. Okay. And as a matter of fact, the Caribbean Development Bank has what they call a country engagement strategy. And that is sort of over a window of how they will engage with sandwiches and what resources they make available to sandwiches. And so, the MTDS coincided with that country engagement strategy from the Caribbean Development Bank. And a lot of the pillars we have already gotten resources dedicated to that in a sense. Okay. So, obviously we have World Bank, similarly we have World Bank funding available. But one of the critical things that we did differently in this time, we got support from the World Economic Forum through the whole UN system to develop what is called a country financing roadmap for solution. And the thinking was that, tied to the SDG implementation. So, solution is signatory to SDGs and so on. And there's this sort of that, globally there's a thinking that we are falling behind on our SDGs. 2030 is the target. We are already 2020. And a lot of the ambitious targets seem to be that we lose momentum on that. So, that will be coming from, it's coming in. And the thinking is that to develop a financing roadmap where we engage a host of multilateral agencies and also on the private sector side to now look at some of the projects that we have in solution. And then develop these projects so that they can become what you call bankable projects. And tie these projects to the most appropriate funding agency or the donor or the private sector entity. So, the government is working a lot with this World Bank and CDV and so on. The World Economic Forum now is a big organization, a global organization that has G20 and all these, they are now saying, we have this network of individuals across the largest firms in the world. We can now connect you to some of these persons, these companies and start that dialogue as to how you can fund someone. So, that's ongoing. And we anticipate that there's going to be significant returns from these efforts. And Saint Lucia is actually the first country globally along with Ghana to sort of start that because the thing is, there's a lot of funding in the global community available. So, for instance, there's a green climate fund, which is a huge fund that came out of the Paris Agreement and so on, resources to help climate resilience and so on. But it's one thing to have the funds there and globally tapping in and getting them to be... So, the World Economic Forum is now coming in and say, okay, how we can unlock funding that's available to achieve first climate resilience but also SDG implementation. And so, that's the role we see here. We hope that it can really bear fruit, you know, and we anticipate that... And not just that Saint Lucia is now emerging as a leader in development financing because you're now seeing... We now, smaller and other small developing countries can learn from our experience in terms of our country financing roadmap and so on. But particularly, we see the country financing roadmap assisting in key areas that perhaps the public sector can necessarily venture into and more on the private sector side. So, for instance, energy. Energy is one of the big areas for us in terms of renewable energy, geofoomal energy and so on. And these are very... The capital outlay initially can be very significant and you need firms with the expertise that can really... And so, we see that the World Economic Forum can help to get into the private sector areas to some extent and help us tap into and get resources to help us achieve our medium-term development strategy. Okay, we're running out of time. Any final words? Well, I think, Jesse, this is an unprecedented time in that the entire world, you know, even in the case of a hurricane, you know, and I also like to say, I mean, we have a hurricane looming, you know, a hurricane season looming and it's actually projected to be a very active season, you know, and you don't want... Jesse, imagine dealing with COVID and having to deal with a hurricane simultaneously. So that's... So it's unprecedented. It's a global issue. It is both a public health and an economic issue. The sort of response, it will require collective response of all agents, governments, the business, households, everybody, public, private sector have to put their shoulders to the will in order for us to come back. My view is that it's not a time to be divisive and let's work towards a common goal of weathering the storm and coming out emerging stronger out of COVID. I also want to make the point that there's a lot of opportunities that have been emerging now, opportunities on the digital economy, opportunities in a number of other areas and so I think COVID provides us as a government opportunity to sort of move in quicker to bring out the transformation and the changes that we want to see in our country. And so I would like to just say that, you know, the Department of Economic Development, the team and the permanent secretary, we see our MTDS as being a critical policy response tool now in the context of COVID, which will help in the short term in terms of stimulating that economic activity that we want and creating demand will continue to help us give us a good platform for recovery and also our long-term development strategy. So these are my final words, Jesse. And lastly, I would also want to say communication, you know, because of that uncertainty, we don't know how long COVID is going to last. We don't know the extent of the impact on our economy. But you don't want to create an additional layer of uncertainty in terms of what is the government doing. You understand? So I think the Command Center and so on is helping in that case by providing information to the public as to what the government is doing. And I think that's a very commendable initiative because otherwise you don't want people to be in the dark. And so I'd like to commend the GIS team for this very... And I'd also like to say that every single day there's a program and I can imagine the amount of work coaxes here every day. So suddenly I want to commend you guys for this and thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thanks to the MTDS in our holster that we're able to now move out into recovering from COVID-19. Thank you so much for watching this morning. This has been the St. Lucia COVID-19 Response Report this morning featuring the chief economist, Mr. Tommy Descartes. On behalf of the entire production team, Carlton and myself, we do hope that you have continued to have a good morning and a good week. Do stay tuned for more programming here on NTN. Goodbye.