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It is with optimism and expectation that I welcome you to these round table consultations between the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and the World Bank Group.  Despite the unprecedented difficulties of our time, and the commensurate responsibilities that must weigh heavily on the shoulders of many of us, my belief in our capacity to put our region on a path of sustained development, remains undiminished.

My certainty derives from the knowledge that, as a Region, we have reached a level of maturity in the conduct of our affairs, that provides the bedrock upon which we are able to make the right decisions and take the required action that will lead to success.  Our regional family has grown from infancy, through adolescence and adulthood, to its current relative maturity, from where we can strike out with assurance, in whatever direction that is required and deemed necessary for the development of our countries and for our people.

Along the way, we have taken numerous decisions aimed at fashioning our Union in a manner that will serve us well in the foreseeable future:  
•    we have crafted, in a number of related areas, a common legislative framework related to financial, currency and administrative matters;
•    we have established supervisory mechanisms and structures for the maintenance and preservation of the financial integrity of the region;
•    we have improved our analytical and collaborative systems relating to financial and statistical issues and embraced private sector perspectives in our effort to improve our collective knowledge base.

All those achievements serve to strengthen the foundation from which we can now launch an inter-related complex of initiatives to take us to the next stage.  Yes, we have achieved a certain degree of maturity, but we would do well to recognize that, in truth, we are merely at the beginning of a new phase.

The economic crisis has helped to focus our attention on the need to create a platform for sustained growth and development, that is designed to reduce our vulnerability and increase our resilience to both external and internal shocks.

Our region fared better than most other countries and regions during the worst days of the crisis, and continues to do so in these latter stages.  However, we cannot ignore the real effects on our regional economy, including the financial sector, and must take appropriate action to make our citizens less vulnerable, including educating our people and establishing effective mechanisms to maintain the integrity of our financial and economic institutions.

In designing an integrated strategy for sustainable growth and development, it is necessary to consolidate the gains that we have made thus far.  We must learn from both the mistakes and the successes of the past:
•    What are the strategies that served us well?; which ones were inappropriate?
•    Where were resources best employed or used inefficiently?
•    Were we successful in involving our population fully in their own development? and
•    How can we motivate our people, the most important resource that we can ever have?

In developing strategies for sustaining the development effort, we will have to identify the impediments to growth, not in a general sense, but specifically, in order that any solutions that we find will be effective.  It is no longer enough to have glossy but impracticable plans adorning some bookshelf in a forgotten corner of an obsolete office.  A clear articulation of the growth sectors and growth-inducing factors and strategies, along with appropriate programmes arising therefrom, will have to be developed, agreed upon and implemented, if we are to bequeath vibrant and sustainable economies to future generations.

One of the most critical questions facing us, relates to the financing of development.  At a time when countries are under pressure to reduce their high debt ratios, when external savings are becoming increasingly hard to come by, and both fiscal and private accounts are over-burdened, how is development to be financed?  Where are the savings and investment resources to come from?  What will be the strategies for mobilizing and applying them to the development effort?

It is necessary to consider our path to sustainable growth and development, in the context of the economic integration of the Eastern Caribbean countries.  There will, inevitably, be implications for our countries and the pace and character of the integration movement itself.  

We all recognize the importance of partnerships to the development process.  Governments partner with one another, with the private and other sectors within their own countries, and with international institutions and friendly countries outside the Region.

Our Region and the World Bank Group have a long history of working together and we welcome your participation in these consultations.  We hope that your involvement will also be a catalyst for the involvement of other institutions and countries.  Critically, we trust that together, we can arrive at workable solutions that will bring about the sustainable growth and development of the member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.

I do not expect us to resolve all the issues at this meeting, but these consultations are an important and timely part of the ongoing dialogue on our future.

I wish to welcome you to this round table and to congratulate the ECCB, particularly the Governor, for organizing it.  I look forward to a successful outcome.

I thank you.