, it has played an important role in building a body of outstanding caribbean economics scholarship through on - going collaboration, primarily among the caricom central banks, the university of the west indies, the private sector and civil society organisations. it is no surprise, therefore, that this forum has contributed to and honed the economic acumen of some of the more prominent economists of our generation, including current governors of some of our central banks. indeed, i personally recall my first attendance at a regional monetary studies conference in 1981 where i first came face to face with some of the legends of this region. the contribution of stalwarts to this conference such as professor c. y. thomas, professor compton bourne, terrence farrell, delisle worrell, the late professor roland craigwell, shelton nicholls, to name but a few is worthy of emulation. it is my considered view that for young economists, the comments and encouragement provided by persons of this calibre served to strengthen, over time, the quality of research produced within the region. as policy makers, we recognise that focused, timely and relevant research is important for good policy - making. in the region, we continue to face many economic challenges in a global environment that is not always favourable. as we speak, there is uncertainty created by international developments such as the discussions on brexit, protectionism and threats of trade wars, the risks posed by geopolitical risks to oil prices and rising interest rates. at the same time, some of our economies, which have had to shift their economies from traditional primary products to services in an effort to facilitate growth and jobs and make them more resilient to economic and climatic shocks, now face the threats presented by the oecd initiative on base erosion profit sharing and the threats of eu blacklisting. at the domestic level, fiscal imbalances and high public sector indebtedness act as a brake on growth, raising the question of whether there is an optimal size to government in our economies. there are still constraints on the availability of finance for small enterprises and how can we improve the efficiency of the financial system to promote growth. at the regional level, we are not as advanced in the regional project as we would have wanted to be. these are but some of the challenges for which we require solutions. in this context therefore, while our research techniques have become more sophisticated through the use of the latest in econometric methods, we must not forget that the underlying

rationale for our research remains that we need to explain how our economies have worked and to be able to develop strategies to confront the challenges that we face. the theme of this year's conference is " emerging economic and financial issues in 21st century economies ”. judging from the conference programme, the next three days is expected to be stimulating, involving research papers covering a variety of topics, including financial market performance, financial regulation, economic growth, tourism performance and banking industry issues. today, we look forward to the launch of the inter - american development bank ’ s ebook “ nurturing institutions for a resilient caribbean ”, an important publication that provides an in - depth analysis of the institutional experiences in the six caribbean countries that comprise the idb ’ s caribbean country department, namely the bahamas, barbados, guyana, jamaica, suriname and trinidad and tobago. this year ’ s adlith brown memorial lecture will be delivered by dr. arnold mcintyre, deputy division chief, caribbean division i, international monetary fund, on the timely topic of strengthening economic growth and resilience in the caribbean. arnold has a great depth of experience in caribbean economic research and practice and we are happy he has accepted our invitation to deliver the lecture. in closing, i am certain that, as is usually the case, we will have a productive and successful three days of discussion and debate. special thanks to the teams from the central bank of barbados and the cert secretariat for organising what appears to be an excellent conference programme. for those of you are visiting, do enjoy our hospitality and culture. thank you.