28 Business View Caribbean - January 2015
to facilitate the ease of doing business – we have
jumped in the World Bank global competitiveness
rankings back up 36 places and all of that shows that
the reform is underway. What we are focusing on now
is trying to augment the rates of global growth as best
we can and to facilitate levels of employment. I should
mention also that unemployment numbers are down.
So, is the pace as quick as we would want? It is within
the program projection, but we certainly want to get
more.
BUSINESS VIEW: We spoke recently with one of the
people that’s on the Economic Programme Oversight
Committee and we were talking a little bit about the
workers population in the country and the necessity
that there be some tangible sort of progress that
they’re able to see, that pays off some of the sacri-
fices that they’ve had to make over the last several
years. Do you feel that the population has seen what
it needs to see in terms of progress?
PHILLIPS
: Well, it depends on which sector you’re talk-
ing about. For example, the cane farmers participat-
ing in the sugar cane industry are getting some of the
higher prices for their cane delivered to manufactur-
ers. The coffee farmers who are selling to entities re-
cently privatized are getting double the prices for their
coffee. In the manufacturing sector, there’s still much
Dr. the Hon. Peter Phillips, Minister and Finance and Planning and Ms. Therese Turner-Jones, Country Representative-
IDB, sign the instruments for the third phase of the Citizen Security and Justice Programme. Seated to the far left is The
Hon. Peter Bunting, MP, Minister of National Security and to the far right is Mr. Robert Ready, Canadian High Commis-
sioner. - Photographer: Maurice Williams
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