marion williams : barbados ’ financial system and insurance sector address by dr marion williams, governor of the central bank of barbados, to the barbados association of insurers and financial advisers ( baraifa ), bridgetown, 20 march 2009. * * * introduction mr. chairman, madam president mrs. lorena best and past president mr. wilton gale, mrs. shirley clarke, agents and financial advisers, distinguished life underwriters. when last i spoke with you in early 2008, we were only just beginning to see the fallout from the collapse of the us sub - prime market. while at the time we expected there to be some ( limited ) effects on demand and financing conditions, our more immediate concern related to the inflationary impact of record - high international commodity prices and oil prices in particular. since then, however, circumstances have changed dramatically, and for the worse. it has become clear that we are entrenched in a global financial crisis and economic downturn, stemming from an acute crisis of confidence. the only upside ( if one can call it that ) to the situation would be that depressed world demand has helped to stabilise international prices and curb inflationary pressures. current global conditions therefore pose obvious challenges for barbados, as economic downturns in our major trading partners and the ongoing turmoil in international financial markets continue to filter through to the domestic economy. macroeconomic developments i think that everyone in this room is aware that the year 2009 will be a difficult year for barbados, for the caribbean and the world. with the global economy slowing significantly, and most of europe and north america in recession ; with china experiencing half the rate of growth than is customary and south east asia, india, australia and new zealand experiencing significant downturns, or in recession, the expectation is that this must have a significant negative impact on barbados and the caribbean. the questions that most of us want answered are : how badly is it likely to affect us? how long will it last and what can we do to mitigate its impact? what pre - emptive action can we take, collectively as a government or individually? for baraifa members i would expect that one of your main interests would be about how the insurance market will be affected and what are the prospects for the insurance business going forward. as we all know by now, the softening of global demand, amid tight financial conditions, has triggered economic downturns in our key source markets for tourism. barbados is a very open economy and because

. in the right - hand chart, figures are the percentages of the population living in urban areas. sources : world bank ; goldewijk, k. k., beusen, a., and janssen, p., " long - term dynamic modeling of global population and built - up area in a spatially explicit way : hyde 3. 1, " the holocene, vol. 20, issue 4 ( 2010 ) : pp. 565 - 73. chart 12 ii. living with covid - 19 and future conduct of monetary policy ict investment cy [UNK] japan united states united kingdom france cy 1980 source : oecd. conclusion smallpox vaccination in the saga clan " naomasa ko shishi jun'ichiro gimi shuto no zu " ( painting of the smallpox vaccination of jun'ichiro, the heir of nabeshima kanso ) drawn by jinnouchi shorei, owned by saga - ken medical centre koseikan chart 13