 The public is reminded that dengue fever can be controlled by reducing or eliminating your risks of mosquito bites. This can be achieved by eliminating mosquito breeding sites in and around your home, by discarding all open containers with stagnant water on a regular basis, also using insect repellent which may be applied directly to the skin, clothing or mosquito nets, and the wearing of long clothing. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is seeking public comment and feedback on two pieces of draft legislation expected to have a direct positive impact on the private and productive sectors of the economy. The two draft pieces of legislation in question are the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill and the Security Interests and Moveable Property Bill. Glenn Simon reports. Pillar 4 of the San Lucia Economic Recovery and Resilience Plan is gathered building resilience of the private and productive sectors of the economy. Policy Intervention No. 24 outlined under this pillar seeks to support the business environment by fast-tracking legislation to increase access to finance by MSMEs. Sharma Mathre is the economist with the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council NCPC, the agency's spearheading the legislative reforms. Currently we're in the process of finalizing the Security Interests and Moveable Property Bill and this is essentially a piece of legislation which enables the use of movable assets as collateral in order to access financing from banks. We're also in the process of finalizing another bill which is the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill and this is a piece of legislation which basically works with businesses and individuals who have fallen into economic crisis by giving them a chance at reorganizing or rehabilitating their debt so as to meet their financial obligations to the bank. Now the latter reform and piece of legislation is a significant one for the financial sector as well as the economy as a whole. The bills are expected to generate greater confidence among MSMEs in accessing finance for business expansion, exports and employment generation while providing security and redress to financial institutions transacting business with MSMEs. She added that the drafting process has been very meticulous and involved extensive stakeholder consultation via a steering committee comprising representation from the Bar Association, Bankers Association, various private sector associations, key agencies and government ministries as well as civil society organizations. We also worked with the World Bank Secure Transactions Legal Specialists as well as the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Legal Specialists and those persons have a wealth of knowledge and experience in terms of drafting those types of legislation and even implementing these reforms and other jurisdictions around the world and of course they took into consideration our local context. Martha pointed out that the bills are very comprehensive in nature and have sought to address many grey areas and varying concerns. However, before the bills are enacted into law, the public is invited to comment on the draft pieces of legislation and provide feedback before the bills are finalized. We at the NCPC and the Department of Finance and other key stakeholders are looking forward to the completion of the bills but I think more importantly to the implementation of the wider reforms and those reforms actually translating to private sector expansion, exports and of course contributing to economic growth in our wider economy. So we look forward to your contribution, your input and your feedback. The draft Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill and the Security Interest in Moveable Assets Bill are available to the public on the Government of St. Lucia Portal, govt.lc and the Ministry of Finance's website finance.gov.lc. The NCPC also aims to increase its public centralization campaign around these two pieces of legislation for the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reporting.