Preparations for this year’s National Budget are at “an extremely advanced stage,” says Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, who also indicated today that the date for the annual presentation would be officially announced in a few days time.
Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler
“We are basically finalizing and putting the finishing touches on it. We don’t have a whole lot more to do and the leader of the House of Assembly should be able to announce the date shortly,” said Sinckler, when asked by Barbados TODAY to say when the budget was coming.
He did not go into details on the much-anticipated financial package, except to say that bringing the country’s deficit to more a manageable level was one of the main objectives of this year’s exercise.
While indicating that a deficit of six per cent was still too high, he said the country also had to work to get its investment levels up by improving its regulation and business facilitation.
“We have to look at our incentive schemes, we have to reform our structure of Government, [as well as engage in] tax reform and reform our public administration. And then we have to of course concentrate on growth,” the Minister of Finance said.
“That means that we have to look at areas that we know can produce good growth sustainably and quickly for Barbados,” he explained, while pointing to “tourism, international business, alternative energy, construction and of course non trading sectors, distributive trades and agriculture”.