 Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Growth, Job Creation, External Affairs and the Public Service Hon. Alan Chastney is currently taking part in the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund IMF and the Board of Governors of the World Bank Group. The annual meetings held in October bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development and aid effectiveness. Joining Prime Minister Chastney at the meetings is the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Department of Finance Esther Rigbert, officials of the Department of Finance and the Department of Economic Development. This year's meetings will be held in a virtual format and feature seminars, regional briefings, press conferences and other events focused on the impact of COVID-19 on the global outlook, the pathway to recovery and the developments in the international financial system. And meanwhile, a governor's meeting with the managing directors of both the IMF and the World Bank will be held. Prime Minister Chastney will participate in the virtual roundtable. The discussion is on CID's access to finance under the theme of identifying solutions for resilient COVID-19 recovery. It is a critical meeting for small states as they face dire economic fallout from the pandemic. Lisa Joseph has a comprehensive look at the contending issues. Prime Minister Hon. Alan Chastney has long been an advocate for better lending policies to be applied to small island developing states by international financial institutions. As the COVID-19 pandemic takes hold of economies worldwide, small states like St. Lucia are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid economic collapse. Prime Minister Chastney describes it as war on two fronts, health and economics. According to the World Bank's semi-annual report titled The Costs of Staying Healthy, the economies of the region are suffering from lower foreign demand, increased economic uncertainty, a collapse of tourism and the consequences of months under lockdown to try to contain the spread of the disease. With the pandemic expected to continue for an extended period, healthcare systems should consider reforms to improve effectiveness and reduce the cost borne by governments and individuals. In addition, governments will need to find paths back to fiscal consolidation after this necessary period of high spending on economic stimulus and emergency social transfers. Despite this recognition, Caribbean countries who may have been looking toward debt forgiveness as a means of economic relief have been dealt a devastating blow. World Bank chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, Martin Rama, says countries in the Caribbean should not count on getting any debt relief and should therefore look seriously at other alternatives of effectively managing and growing their economies. Barbados' prime minister, Anbel Miamatli, has been lobbying for debt forgiveness for Caribbean countries that are on the brink due to the pandemic. Barbados' debt to GDP ratio had been reduced in June this year to 124.7 percent from 175 percent, making the country the fourth most indebted nation behind Japan, Greece, and Sudan. But Rama contends that many of the Caribbean countries are among the richest in the region. They tended not to fall within the low-income bracket and tended not to have very high debt, as other economies do. So it would be more difficult to make a case for debt forgiveness or debt reduction. The Shastney disagrees. That to use per capita GDP, to use debt per GDP is unreasonable, because in average it's fine, but in absolute terms, meaning if you multiply that ratio by the population, it's an insignificant amount of money. And we've been arguing to use what we call a vulnerability index, and sadly that vulnerability index was established in 1989 by the Commonwealth Secretariat. So this was really just, I mean, we're certainly not going to take this lying down, but it just tells you in the midst of all of these problems that a statement like that can come out, that we can't take anything for granted. And you would think that the evidence speaks for itself, but to change that global architecture, economic architecture is difficult. At the same time, Caribbean countries have been told by the World Bank to contain costs from COVID-19 while awaiting a vaccine. The advice is for countries to spend in the first instance on health programs, on social programs and on education. A critical step for countries is to reopen schools. Looking longer term, the World Bank says infrastructure is a very important part of a country's growth. You know, the managing director, Kristalina, came out early and said government should spend as much as they possibly can and keep the receipts. Then we're told that invest in capital investment projects, because getting roads going and getting other construction going helps now augment the social stabilization program. So instead of just literally handing person's income support, it's actually putting them back to work. And so at the end of the day, there's actually some physical investment into the country as well. It's a win-win situation. And you have the real situation that globally the world has remained shut down. So we're all, most of the small island developing states of the world are tourism dependent. But the struggle remains building confidence in global travel. Senusia's prime minister has been relentless in his lobby for pre-testing as a safe route to rebuild in the travel sector. IATA, American United, all over the world, people are now embracing that idea. And I'm very proud that that idea came from Senusia, has been embraced by our colleagues in the Caribbean, and we've been out there agitating to make that happen. The efforts are yielding further results, with the UK government last week announcing the establishment of a task force to look at the introduction of testing at Heathrow Airport. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reporting.