, awardees have included emerging talent, and it has also provided a platform for other established artists to showcase their work, including winston farrell, the late honourable edward kamau brathwaite, and esther phillips, barbados'first poet laureate. the value of this competition is also apparent through the number of repeat entrants it has received over the years, as well as by the fact that it continues to attract numerous first - time participants as evidenced by the submissions to last year's competition. 1 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches for this we must thank the many frank collymore literary endowment committees over the past two and a half decades. to the current committee, ably led by mr. andy taitt, and to those who have sat on it in the past, on behalf of the central bank of barbados, let me say how much we appreciate your hard work and dedication, and we offer you our deepest gratitude. this competition is well placed for future growth and development. indeed, the recent change that allows for submission of applications electronically means that we can now receive entries from across the diaspora. we've already seen that taking place, and it is worth noting that last year's top entrant is based overseas. this year, we again received several foreign - based entries. this broadened talent pool underscores the quality of the competition and suggests that everyone entering it must " up their game " if they want to be successful. each of you finalists, regardless of what happens here tonight, has helped to foster the frank collymore literary endowment's legacy and in the end, it is barbadian literature which is the ultimate winner. in closing, i'd like to again thank all of the artists who submitted their pieces to the awards committee, and i congratulate all of the finalists and awardees on their achievement. and finally, to you, our audience, both here in person and online, i thank you for supporting these artists, this competition and the arts in barbados in general. cheers to 25 years! i look forward confidently to another quarter century of outstanding literary work. i thank you. 2 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches

, 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