The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Ministry of Finance of The Bahamas will hold a conference on [“Building Growth into the Caribbean Sustainability Agenda – a Concerted Approach,”](http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2013/caribbean/) on September 19 and 20, 2013 in Nassau, The Bahamas. The conference is being held in collaboration with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the World Bank.
*“The goal is to discuss how to restore growth in the Caribbean while addressing fiscal and debt sustainability objectives,”* says Adrienne Cheasty, Deputy Director in the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department. Bahamas Minister of State for Finance, the Hon. Michael Halkitis pointes out that the high level forum will allow ministers of finance and Central Bank governors and other officials from throughout the Caribbean to discuss ways that they can work together with international financial institutions to address pressing economic and financial matters which confront the region. *”The focus,”* he adds, *“continues to be on how the international financial institutions can enhance the support they provide in particular to small and highly vulnerable income countries both in terms of tailoring policy advice as well as how they intervene with direct assistance when small middle income countries encounter economic crises.”*
The event, a follow-up to last year’s high-level conference in Trinidad and Tobago on rethinking policy priorities, will gather finance ministers, central bank governors, and other high-ranking officials from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and, Trinidad and Tobago.
*“The conference will bring to the table all of the major stakeholders with a view to developing a shared, comprehensive vision for growth in the region,”* Ms. Cheasty said.
The Right Honorable Perry G. Christie, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of The Bahamas, will open the conference. Delegations from the international financial institutions will be led by Mr. Min Zhu, IMF Deputy Managing Director; Mr. Warren Smith, President of the CDB; Mr. Luis Moreno, President of the IDB; Mr. Jean Philippe Prosper, Vice President of the IFC; and Mr. Hasan Tuluy, Vice President of the World Bank.