The Hyatt Resort project is to get started by June – it is part of an estimated one billion US dollars in tourism investment that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart expects to boost the economy and create thousands of jobs.

Prime Minister Stuart made the announcement during an address to yesterday’s lunch meeting of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He said, “In my capacity as minister with responsibility for town planning matters, within the next seven days, I expect to be in a position to give planning permission for the Downtown Hyatt project, by which time, all of the outstanding preconditions would have been satisfied. This permission, of course, would be subject to all of the necessary conditions to protect the wider interest of the Barbadian community.”

Prime Minister Stuart also told the business people that there would be no devaluation of the Barbados dollar, stressing that it was not necessary and that the strategy had not worked for other countries in the Caribbean.

He also said Barbados would not be entering into an IMF programme.