Imbert: IMF 0% growth for 2019 preliminary

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert says the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection that in 2019 there will be zero per cent growth in the economy was preliminary.

He was responding to a question from Opposition Senator Taharqa Obika on Tuesday on measures to mitigate the IMF projection. Imbert replied the recent projection by the IMF for 2019 was based on provisional 2019 data.

“It is merely a preliminary estimate, which will be updated when the actual GDP data for 2018 is provided by the Central Statistical Office, which we expect to get shortly. It should be noted that after that IMF projection was published in the World Economic Outlook in April 2019, the IMF confirmed in a live press conference that the TT economy started to improve in 2017 and returned to positive growth in 2018, and further, it will update its April 2019 projection in June or July of 2019.”

Imbert said it should also be noted IMF is required to adopt final Central Statistical Office (CSO) data in its projections and publications as is the case for all other countries in the world that have national statistical agencies such as the CSO.

“In contrast the World Bank has projected real growth of 0.9 per cent for the TT economy for 2019. We expect the actual GDP growth figure for 2018 to be close to the World Bank projection, if not better.”

He continued: “In the circumstances, there is no need to put measures in place to mitigate anything. According to all official estimates, both local and international, our economy has turned around and is on a positive growth path.”

Obika asked why was there a dissonance between the growth figures by the CSO and the Central Bank.

Imbert said that was incorrect and the Central Bank, in its latest publication, used the CSO figure for 2018 and 2019.

“I have no idea what the senator is talking about.”