The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that its team has reached a Staff-Level Agreement with Barbados on the Third Reviews of the Extended Fund Facility and the Resilience and Sustainability Facility.

Barbados, therefore, qualifies for a further 56 million US dollars in IMF funding.

The IMF’s Executive Board is expected to consider both reviews in June.

An IMF statement notes that
Barbados’ economy has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with 12 consecutive quarters of growth, driven by a rebound in tourism and related sectors.

The statement adds that implementation of what’s described as an ambitious home-grown Barbados Economic Reform and Transformation (BERT 2022) program continues to be strong.

According to the IMF, Barbados authorities remain committed to maintaining fiscal consolidation and debt sustainability, while advancing structural reforms to achieve more inclusive and sustainable growth and increase resilience to climate change.

The IMF news release states that at the request of the Government of Barbados, an IMF team led by Michael Perks visited Barbados during May 13th to 21st to discuss the implementation of Barbados’ Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT 2022) plan, supported by the IMF under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

They also discussed implementation of reform measures under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement.

The completion of the reviews will make available to Barbadod about 19 million US dollars under the EFF arrangement and about 37 million US dollars under the RSF arrangement.