in whatever it is that we do. we should have confidence in our ability to renew economic expansion, based on how far we have come in this country. when i was born in 1945, the typical lower middle class household like my own family did not yet have electricity. we did have piped water, a single tap in the yard. when i returned to barbados in 1973 to establish the research department at central bank, i discovered that only 30 percent of homes had a wc at that time. in the space of two generations barbadians have transformed this country from the third world to the first world. and we have done it without the natural resource endowment of many others. this remarkable achievement should buoy our spirits and sharpen our resolve as we take on the heavyweight countries of the first division. the quality of life in our country is more important than the growth rate. our caribbean and latin american neighbours who are growing have a long way to go before achieving our standard of living. we do not have their backlog of destitution and want. we may therefore take our time to establish sound foundations for growth that will endure, and that we may sustain, whatever the future state of the world. sustainable growth is a marathon, not a sprint. if you rush out of the starting gate, boosting domestic consumption, you will run out of foreign exchange, with the risk of losing the gains you have made in the short run. in a race with experienced marathoners, only the hopelessly naive will rush to the front of the field. for barbados, the proper comparison is not with the growth of countries like guyana and the dominican republic whose gdp is less than a third of our own, but with the bahamas and bermuda where gdp is much higher. if you compare barbados ’ performance since the 2008 crisis with that of the bahamas and bermuda, we see no great difference. finally, let me remind you that fiscal consolidation establishes the foundation for future growth. i refer you to my paper on maintaining our policy independence, which you may find on the central bank ’ s website. the experiences of cyprus and greece are salutary. we in barbados can be reassured that we are in no danger of having to accede to the impositions of the imf or any other agency, because we have $ 1. 4 billion in foreign exchange reserves at the central bank. i believe every barbadian would agree that that reassurance is worth the fiscal sacrifices that we have imposed on ourselves

, even though this means that government continues to observe strict limits on domestically financed growth. in conclusion we have every reason to be confident of the economic future of our country, because our fate is entirely up to us. the adverse impact of the prolonged global recession is a reality we cannot escape, and because we depend so heavily on foreign exchange we do not have the option of bettering our lives by depending on our own resources. we must therefore seek ways of increasing foreign earnings from the activities we are renowned for, tourism, international business and rum, and of economising on oil imports by generating green energy. we know what this entails : increasing government efficiency, developing more appropriate financial strategies, and transforming work attitudes. government and the private sector must invest in creating new high quality productive capacity, improving productivity, and maintaining and upgrading infrastructure. it is a tall order, but we are in the big leagues now, and we need to benchmark our performance on the gold standard, in order to keep moving up the ranks. we may be confident in our ability to meet the challenge, when we reflect on how far the country has come in the lifetimes of many of us, on the basis of slow, sustained and equitable growth. bis central bankers ’ speeches