The COVID19 Pandemic is triggering the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1939 and the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. But despite this, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has managed the economy well and could be described as an exemplar in the region.

The observation was made recently by Justin Robinson, head of the Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus and the Executive Director, Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management.

"Financially, the Caribbean islands except maybe Guyana are all having economic issues, but outside of the oil producing countries, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is one the best performers economically and is currently getting through the pandemic with the least economic damage." Professor Robinson said.

He said St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ economy was projected to decline about seven percent in 2020 and recover by 3.7 percent in 2021. “So, the region on a whole is expected to be down by around 1.5 percent, but the story across the region is really one of decline,” Robinson said.

Robinson added that for St. Vincent and the Grenadines the prediction is that the economy would decline by 3.3 percent in 2021. Professor Robinson gave two reasons for St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ performance:

1) the country is not wholly a tourism dependent economy,

2) good economic management.

“We have a particular type of tourism in the Grenadines and that has helped us weather the storm well as well as the management of the Health Authorities, and the economic management of the country I think has helped us get through this very difficult period as something of an exemplar in the region,” Professor Robinson said. 

He however noted that in 2021 St. Vincent and the Grenadines is facing COVID19, Dengue and an erupting volcano. “…a triple whammy. So. I am hoping that we can keep on this path,” he said, while noting that across the region, job losses and job cuts are dramatic. 

I serve as a Director of the Central Bank in Barbados here and I get to see a lot of these numbers firsthand and there was a point in the pandemic where the NIS in Barbados was seeing 40,000 plus unemployment claims and these are numbers we have never experienced. 

“St. Vincent and the Grenadines have a budget coming up and when you have a crisis of scale the nature of the government response is extremely important and St. Vincent and the Grenadines as tough as it seems, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has weathered this storm extremely well compared to the rest of the region,” Professor Robinson said.