Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Timothy Antoine has announced that the Eastern Caribbean dollar remains strong in the region.
He made that announcement while addressing the Dominica Association of Industry and Commerce (DAIC) ‘Eggs and Issues’ Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday, which focuses on the Theme “Improving Monetary Stability through Growth, Competitiveness and Employment”.
According to him in terms of monetary stability the EC dollar has been strong pegged to the US dollar 1 to 2.7 for the last 41 years.
That, he said, is a tremendous achievement.
“I want to confirm to you this morning that our dollar remains strong, it is back at the moment by about 97.6 percent which simply means, for every $1 EC in circulation we have 97.6 cents in foreign reserves, principally US securities backing our dollar,” Antoine explained.
According to Antoine there are benefits to having a strong dollar in the region.
“Low inflation, confidence, free convertibility , so you know if you have EC dollars you can get US dollars,” he noted. “Investors like that because they do not have to worry about exchange risk.”
There are many benefits experienced over time because of the strong dollar, he said.
Meantime he said the region’s financial system is stable and somewhat resilient, pointing out that in the ECCU, the average of non-performing loans stand at 11 percent.
“Now that is coming down from a high of around 18 percent three years ago, but the international bench mark for non-performing loans is in fact 5 percent,” he explained. “So we [are] still more than double and our bankers in the room will understand that remains a big issue. Some banks are actually higher than that and of course there are those who are below that.”
He went on to say that there is work to be done in that regard.
Antoine revealed that Dominica has shown some improvement in the area of non-performing loans.
“It’s coming down a bit slowly, the non-performing loans, so we continue to encourage our countries where that is concerned,” he said.
He revealed that some of the actions that the ECCB is contemplating include, the establishment of the Eastern Caribbean Asset Management Corporation, “that is a regional body that is intended to buy bad loans from our banks, starting with the banks that were resolved in Antigua & Barbuda and Anguilla, then moving on to buy bad loans from other banks.”
He said this is important because, “banks are constrained in their ability to extend credit to the extent that their balance sheet is impaired with the high proportion of non-performing loans.”
Antoine said further that those high non-performing loans not only mean lower interest income for the banks, “but probably [mean] higher fees and charges for you and for me.”
“Because at the end of the day the banks have to make up their income and by the way, banks must make a profit,” he stated.
And guess who owns the ECCB?? https://realitieswatch.com/complete-list-of-banks-ownedcontrolled-by-the-rothschild-family/
Conspiracy theories abound. There’s some truth but it’s mirky to navigate. So I’m just going to believe them because the status quo has continued untouched for several too many hundred years, and it su*k5, we need a new era to usher in.
Officials at the ECCB should stop fooling people into believing that a strong EC dollar is necessarily a good thing. Undoubtedly, it is better than a perpetually collapsing currency, but we’re not faced with just these two extreme alternatives: strong dollar or collapsing dollar. The value of our currency should reflect the strength of our economies, and there will inevitably be times when it is in our economic interest to have a weaker currency, e.g., to make what we sell (agricultural products, tourism, etc.) more attractively priced and to discourage imports. A few years ago, Greece desperately needed, and would have dearly loved, to weaken its currency but it could not because it was tied to the Euro, and they suffered tremendous hardship. However, rather than having a currency that reflects the strength of our economies, we have this strong currency artificially tied to the US dollar that is killing us. And our inept and/or lazy central bankers pretend that’s a great thing.
It is a great thing. Considering JA, TnT, Guiana all tried manipulation of their dollar to gain leverage, among other things, and look what happened.
The Question to answer is how much has the Collective Assets in the ECCU increased during the 41 years, and what impact would that make on the strength of the EC$ against the US. That is how we would effectively know whether our dollar is strong or weak and whether our collective accumulation of wealth is growing at a level that will allow us a better exchange rate against the dollar if we were not pegged at a default mutually agreed exchange rate..
So when it comes to trade, instead of paying $3 EC for Milk that cost $1 US, we would be in a position to say, well our currency is strong enough to pay EC$2 instead.
Another scam, phony organisation fronting the people who debt-enslave the world. Folks the ECB is 100% owned by private, foreign individuals. It is not owned the the member states, yet they private individuals get to decide the monetary policy of a region and indeed the world. Strange, aye?
That’s a strong claim. Do you have a link to something that confirms this?
This is common knowledge. But you can find out for yourself. Simply write to the ECB and ask them to let you have the full official legal documents of the corporate body called the ECCB; the full list of its shareholders (not nominees, actual shareholders) and DIRECTORS and its balance sheet.
You have to remember that the bank is a CORPORATE body, just like the Bank of England and by virtue of this has both directors and shareholders. Funnily enough, the bank of England lists its shareholders as ‘foreign, private persons’ – strange
You will wait a long, long, time to get these details.
When you get them, just publish them on DNO so that everyone will know for certain what a scam this organisation really is. In the meantime, you will be interested to know that our good ole ECCB is really owned by the Rothchilds family – https://realitieswatch.com/complete-list-of-banks-ownedcontrolled-by-the-rothschild-family/
of course he does not. talk is free around here. without the responsibility
And the Bank of England (Nominees) is now in liquidation whilst the Treasury which represents the UK on the Board of the now ‘privatised’ Bank of England Corporation and also the directors, do not have control of the nations monetary policy which appears to be able to be decided by ‘consultants’ of its ‘monetary committee’.
So much smoke and mirrors, the deception is deafening :).
One final question, if the Bank of England, is owned by the government, why does the government have to pay interest on money it borrows from it? Same Q for the ECCB – answers on an pinhead please.
The EC, which is tied to the US dolllar will remain strong as long as the dollar remains strong.
What a phony game the bankers all play with the phonney money.
i knew it. i just knew someone was going to make a dumb comment. i knew it!
Hear lies Low inflation
