 The government of St. Lucia has expressed its commitment to continuing capital projects in order to prevent a total collapse of the local economy. This is exceedingly important given that investments and prospective investments in St. Lucia have been hard hit. The issue was examined Sunday evening during a live panel discussion on the National Television Network. More from Anisia Antoine. The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a lasting effect on investment and the economy. The COVID-19 roadmap to recovery, the role of investment panel discussion, focused on the review of the economic impact of the pandemic on St. Lucia whilst charting the road to recovery. The panel of experts weighed in on the state of the economy, the medium-term development strategy, the support for local investments, and St. Lucia's capital expenditure and investments projects. Tommy Descat, chief economist at the Department of Economic Development, spoke on the key areas currently being focused on in the medium-term development strategy. We think that some of what we try to achieve are structural, try to remedy structural issues in the economy that has been there since post-independence. And so essentially pre or post-COVID, these will remain and so the government needs to still continue these initiatives. However, we see the MTDS now being positioned as sort of coming and giving us stimulus during this time. So it's really about the issue of timing. If we fast-track some of these initiatives, particularly infrastructure projects, we have a very ambitious road infrastructure project. And again, building climate resilience to infrastructure. We have a hurricane season just around the corner. So we see the medium-term development strategy now doubling up as a sort of a stimulus in the short term by providing an injection of resources into the economy through capital projects, but also helping us and putting us on a platform that we can have a quicker recovery. The chief economist explained that the majority of the initiatives will be financed through multilateral development banks, ensuring transparency in public procurement processes. Descat also noted the importance of ensuring that the projects are labour-intensive. I would like to say that most of the projects are at the commencement of the cycle of the construction fees. And that's generally the period where it's very labour-intensive. And so we see that you won't just have projects happening and it's just a few persons. We anticipate that because of the magnitude and the size of the projects that we'll be embarking upon, it will absorb a significant supply of the excess labour that we see in the economy. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, Karen Fontenelle-Peter, explained that the Chamber of Commerce is in the process of developing investment avenues for local investors. Private citizens have certain projects who are in the stages of negotiation, maybe a government ministry is holding up some part of it. So we need to, and we will actually, we are proposing a local investment forum, the Chamber that is, where our local investors can come and present and identify those projects that they have in the pipeline and trying to get them started for the longest while. And for one reason or the other, it's being held up, whether it's by the ministry or whatever. So some sort of intervention would be required, so we could get our own private citizens who have those projects to develop, get it going as well. The president of the Chamber of Commerce commended the government on the measures being taken towards the recovery of the economy post COVID-19. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.