in the society learn to make the right financial decisions. and thus i invite those of you here who have not yet got involved, to join the programme. i urge you to get your friends and colleagues, who are not here, to also get involved. it can be done in many ways. • get your employers to sponsor lunch and learn sessions, in the workplace. • volunteer to organize and provide financial literacy classes to your community groups ; your church groups ; and your social clubs. • teach your kids good financial habits and seek to get financial literacy as part of the school curriculum. we will provide or arrange for the training, the materials and other back - stopping support. we continue to look for financing for the programme. the three year budget calls for an expenditure of $ 10 million of which about one - half is earmarked to come from the central government and the central bank. we would like to raise the remainder from stakeholders. as i said, financial literacy is a national imperative and we would hope to convince a broad cross section of the community to get on the national financial literacy bandwagon. at this point, i would now like to share some of the results of the base - line national literacy survey which was initiated to give us a general idea of the current level of financial literacy in the country. the survey results will also help us to make more targeted interventions as we move forward. we plan to conduct follow - up surveys to track the progress being made under the programme. the survey was conducted ….

ewart s williams : national financial literacy programme of trinidad and tobago opening remarks by mr ewart s williams, governor of the central bank of trinidad and tobago, at the launch of the national financial literacy programme, port - of - spain, 22 january 2008. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i am delighted that you are able to join us in recognizing ( and celebrating ) the one - year anniversary of the launch of the national financial literacy programme ( nflp ). we are also taking the occasion of the anniversary to release the results of the national financial literacy survey conducted last year. roughly one year ago ( on january 31, 2007 to be exact ), following the announcement of the programme by the honourable prime minister in his budget speech, the bank launched the nflp whose major objective is to provide citizens of trinidad and tobago with the knowledge and skills to enable them to make informed financial decisions. one year along the way, we can be pleased that we have made an auspicious start but we can also confirm that this is going to be a long journey. if there are two things that stand out from the first year experience, they are : ( i ) the recognition that financial literacy must be a critical element for successful monetary policy implementation and financial market development ; and ( ii ) that we have increased the awareness of the population of the need to become more financially literate. ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, inflation has been one of our principal economic challenges. one of the main contributors to our current inflationary momentum is the continued significant growth in credit expansion, particularly credit expansion for consumer purposes. this has happened in the face of increasing interest rates, induced by central bank liquidity absorption measures. the figures show, for instance : • consumer credit has been increasing at a rate of 24 percent a year, compared with 9 percent a few years ago ; • credit for automobiles has risen by about 52 percent in the past year ; while • outstanding credit card debt has more than doubled since 2000. ladies and gentlemen if there is a silver lining to the high level of food inflation, it is that it is beginning to force consumers to be more discerning and more price conscious in their purchases. i am also told that backyard gardening is making a comeback. we would hope that the financial literacy programmme would bring an even greater level of consumer awareness into people ’ s financial dealings. over the past year we have been able to make a number of important interventions under the national financial literacy programme.