Middle Income Countries?

Caribbean countries have told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lending agencies that the region should not be lumped with other nations and classified as middle income countries.

Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie told an IMF sponsored conference that ends here Friday that the region’s peculiar circumstances were not well known to the wider international community.

“There is a degree to which they do not understand the dynamics of your country and you are compelled to try and get that across,” Christie said.

“Whether the World Bank likes it or doesn’t like it, I have areas in my country which are no different from areas in those countries who have not graduated,” he told the meeting being attended by several Caribbean finance ministers, some of whom are also heads of government.

St. Lucia’s Prime Minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that “sometimes we are judged by criteria that are of no immediate relevance to our circumstances and to our environment; and part of the issue that we have is to explain to the wider world, what are these real circumstances.