Mascoll: No need to print money

Government’s ambitious push for a six per cent surplus under the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme, sanctioned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has been readjusted to one per cent.

This revelation was made by Government’s Chief Economic Advisor, Ambassador Dr Clyde Mascoll, who contended that since the Mia Amor Mottley administration was still aiming at a net positive in the face of a $2 billion stimulus package to combat the economic effects of COVID-19, recent fears about the printing of money (financing of Government by the Central Bank) had been misplaced.

“In these circumstances, we have to relook the capacity of the Government to run a surplus and therefore there has been a reversal to the extent that we will now relax the target of six per cent primary surplus and bring it down closer to one per cent. What is happening in that environment is that once again, Government is going to extract less than when it was having a six per cent surplus. 

“So, the fiscal room that you are hearing about is that Government no longer has to have a surplus of $600 million. It would instead be around just about $100 million,” said Mascoll, who was a guest today on Starcom Network’s Sunday Brass Tacks radio call-in programme. (CLM)

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