‘YOU DON’T NEED 98 PER CENT’ – PM BROWNE WANTS ECCB TO USE SOME RESERVES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the Right Honourable Gaston Browne, is calling on the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to use some of its substantial reserves of foreign currency to turbocharge economic growth in the Currency Union.

He says this can be done while maintaining sufficient backing for the EC Dollar peg of $2.70 to the United States currency.

Prime Minister Browne was addressing the 113th meeting of the ECCB Monetary Council in Dominica on Thursday, telling fellow finance ministers that, “the bank doesn’t need 98 per cent,” a reference to ratio of foreign reserves for every EC dollar in circulation.

As he turned over the rotating chairmanship of the Monetary Council to Dominica’s Finance Minister Dr Irving Mcintyre, Prime Minister Browne told the meeting that the bank should develop “creative credit and securities instruments,” using between 5 to 7 per cent of these reserves to invest in areas such as energy resilience.