GOVERNMENT’S MANAGEMENT of the economy came in for a battering yesterday following Moody’s Investor’s Service triple point downgrade of Barbados’ credit rating from Ba3 to B3, pushing this country further into junk bond territory.
Economists, business organisations, politicians and civic leaders here and in New York all said the downgrade was expected, and showed Government needed to get “serious” in achieving an economic turnaround.
Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell weighed in on the situation remarking that the depth of Barbados’ economic problems caught him by surprise, and asserted that he did not know they were so serious.
In its report on Monday, Moody’s said the size of the downgrade reflected the reinforcement of negative fiscal trends given the increasing size of the country’s fiscal deficit and their expectation of continued challenges to Government’s efforts at fiscal consolidation.
