Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Sir Dwight Venner, has warned member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) that it cannot be business as usual if the subregion is to achieve economic growth in the future.

Addressing the St Lucia Bankers Association (SLBA), Sir Dwight warned the nine-member OECS states that the future was not promising and that they were facing their sternest test since independence.

"Now there is a major source of worry, with forecasters being undecided on the length of the current global financial and economic crisis," he said.

Decline in foreign exchange

The central bank governor said the current global economic crisis has affected the flow of foreign direct investment into the sub-region adding, "and this is impacting the construction industry, tourism, the main foreign exchange earner (which) is predicted to decline and remittances are also drying up".

Sir Dwight noted that economic growth declined from a high of six per cent in the 1980s to an average of three per cent in the 1990s. Preliminary data indicates that real gross domestic product growth in the OECS fell to 1.7 per cent in 2008 from a rate of 5.2 per cent in 2007.

The ECCB governor said unemployment is expected to increase and that central governments' fiscal operations in the subregion were likely to deteriorate.