St. Kitts – Nevis – Prime Minister Douglas
Photo By Erasmus Williams
Basseterre, Saint Kitts – Nevis
May 26, 2008 (CUOPM)
Young people in St. Kitts and Nevis have been urged to seek the help and assistance that they require from the newly-created St. Kitts Investment Promotion Agency and the new National Entrepreneurial Development Division to establish businesses.
Prime Minister and Minster of Finance, Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas said substantial debt has been incurred with the closure of the sugar industry to create a new national economy based on tourism and hospitality services, information, telecommunications and technology services and financial services.
“They must get adequate access to the ever-expanding financial resources of our financial institutions to finance their mortgages, education, business ventures and other personal projects of interest to them. They must share in the vast amount of foreign exchange earnings that is generated from the unprecedented number of cruise ship and stay-over visitors that now come to our shores,” said Dr. Douglas.
He said that St. Kitts and Nevis must embrace the youths by not only showing them love, but by giving them the guidance they need to reach out and grasp their share of the abundance of opportunities that are being created in the twin-island Federation.
Dr. Douglas said that the Federation could not have made the massive strides in the creation of the new economy without incurring debt.
“But the monies raised by debt has been put to good use and the development projects funded from such debt, will yield the returns necessary to pay off the debt,” said the St. Kitts and Nevis leader, who is also the Minister of Finance.
Dr. Douglas pointed out that the level of the public debt has changed its trajectory and is heading downwards as a result of the increased economic activity and the consequent increase in revenue collections.
He disclosed that an overall surplus of $8.6 million has been reported for the first quarter of this year and this is expected to increase significantly by yearend.
“We firmly believe that as our very productive and innovative capital projects bear even greater fruit the pace of debt reduction will gather even greater momentum and it will continue to fall,” said Prime Minister Douglas.