Owen’s tonic for economy

AN ATTRACTIVE debt exchange package for bond-holders, sale of state assets and tax reform without tax increase are among the recommendations floated by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur to give the economy momentum.

Arthur said Government, with its money problems and wider economic challenges, should consider making another offer to holders of its bonds, following the example of Jamaica, which “invited domestic bond-holders to retire the existing bonds and replaced them with bonds of a longer maturity but with an interest rate that allowed a significant savings on interest payments over the short term”.

Delivering a lecture at the Hilton Barbados resort Thursday night, he remarked: “I judge that Barbados needs to put a similar debt exchange in place, on the understanding that it will give the country some fiscal space to enable it to start to climb out of the hole in which it now finds itself.” (TY)

Please read the full story in today’s Saturday Sun, or in the eNATION edition.