Cut lending rates to boost economy

Here in TT our armchair economists and political analysts can only see projections for 12 months or less.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s administration is getting a lot of criticism with just one year in office. There is a reason why an administration is given four or five years in office to bring about fundamental changes.

People keep saying “nothing is happening.” How can anything happen without the financial resources to do it? Rowley himself admitted that in May the country came close to not meeting its basic responsibility — paying monthly wages and salaries. If a Government is on the verge of not paying its bills, how can it engage in massive infrastructural development? We know infrastructural works would help to boost the economy but there are other market fundamentals to assist our development.

One is lowering the lending rates of banks. The president of the ECB himself has said banks must assist in the development at a time of structural adjustment.

In TT the gap between our deposit rates and lending rates are too wide. Our deposit rates are less than one percent whereas our lending rates are at a whopping nine per cent. We need the banks to assist in national development by reducing their lending rates for small, medium and large entrepreneurs.

After one year in office people look at the unemployment rate going up from 3.5 per cent to 3.8 per cent. We have to start looking at the number of jobs which are created each month.

John Jessamy Fyzabad