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The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has cautioned that Caribbean countries should prepare for prolonged effects of external economic shocks in 2023, including high food and fuel prices and rising international interest rates.<\/span><\/p>\n The financial institution, which serves as the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, in a recent report warned that higher interest rates could lead to economic slowdowns, or even recessions, in important source markets for exported services and goods from the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the report, \u2018Headwinds Facing the Post-Pandemic Recovery\u2019, the impact of <\/span>these shocks depends on the trade structure of individual countries, as well as the external <\/span>financing requirements of each country.<\/span><\/p>\n Among the report\u2019s key findings is that households and businesses are feeling the impact <\/span>of price increases.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAlthough domestic inflation has been somewhat less severe in Caribbean countries, rising <\/span>prices diminish real incomes for households and increase business costs for firms,\u201d it said, <\/span>stressing that online surveys from the World Food Programme also suggest a sharp rise in <\/span>food insecurity across the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n By midsummer, yearly inflation in the Caribbean countries studied by the research averaged <\/span>8%, excluding Suriname, which has had significant inflation since the fall of 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n Regional economic advisor for the IDB\u2019s Caribbean Department, David Rosenblatt, is <\/span>optimistic that the \u201cunfortunate external conditions will improve during 2023\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs with natural disasters, however, it is always prudent to prepare for the worst, even as <\/span>we hope for the best,\u201d he said. <\/span>The authors of the report put forward several reform priorities, such as continued attention to fiscal consolidation and debt management in the macroeconomic dimension and targeted interventions to help households cope with the effects of rising food and fuel prices.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Headwinds Facing the Post-Pandemic Recovery\u2019 is part of the IDB\u2019s Caribbean Economics Quarterly series.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has cautioned that Caribbean countries should prepare for prolonged effects of external economic shocks in 2023, including high food and fuel prices and rising international interest rates. The financial institution, which serves as the largest…","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":296072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,77,235,9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy-development","category-homepage","category-homepage-carousel","category-news","category-regional"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n