The economic outlook and pay raise?

Posted on by
Avoiding any of the politics and emotive elements of this particular issue, in many ways I have to endorse what the Public Service Union and the Association of Public Service Senior Managers (APSSM) have decided to do: that is, defer their pay raise/adjustment given the distressed state of the Belizean economy.
 
Currently, the entire global outlook is less than optimal. One could pick from any reputable source for macroeconomic forecast and the story remains the same: the outlook for Caribbean economies “remains fragile”.
 
For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2016 Regional Economic Outlook (Western Hemisphere) put it this way: “With the global economy still struggling, many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are facing a harsher world than they did just a few years ago.” (See IMF report here)
 

Continue reading →

Keeping Hope Alive: Can Belize’s Q3, Q4 growth figures pull us up?

Posted on by

Okay, so there is certainly a lot going on in the Belizean political scene of late. Everything from the Audit Report to the Section 53 ruling to the Mason saga have been dominating the news cycle and public discourse for the last few weeks. However, one line of conversation has quietly slipped into the background: the Belizean economy.

Earlier this year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had indicated that 2016 would have seen subdued GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth at about 0.5%; however, it’s likely that even their estimate could prove to be a bit more on the optimistic side of things.  Continue reading →