Above: Grenada

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Grenada expects “significant reductions” in both the size of the country’s debt and its debt payments, Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell announced this week.

Mitchell made the announcement in New York following a series of meetings with international organizations in Washington, including the Organization of American States and the International Monetary Fund.

“We expect a significant reduction in our debt size and debt payments,” he said. “We expect to see not only a hair cut in the debt but we expect also to see the debt moved over a long period than the limited period [at present].”

Mitchell said he envisioned a combination of lower interest rates, a hair cut and a spread of the debt over a longer period. That would be accompanied by a combination of soft loans and grants from international financial institutions, he said.

But any programme will require a “home-grown” effort, he said, something that would demand a sacrifice “at all levels in the society.”

“If we have a combination of both of these, and make the necessary sacrifice that is expected of us in our home-grown programme, I expect that Grenada will be put on a path of sustained economic activity,” he said.