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2018 Annual Economic and Financial Review ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
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Eastern Caribbean Central Bank
which amounted to $24.5m, a 41.1 per cent
decline from the inflows from the prior year.
Grants accounted for the vast majority of this
total, with a value of $23.5m in the period,
$5.2m (22.0 per cent) lower than the amount
received in the comparable period in 2017.
Meanwhile, capital revenue remained volatile,
as it fell to a mere $1.0m from $5.8m in 2017,
owing to lower sales of government assets,
including land.
The stock of disbursed outstanding debt of
the public sector was estimated at
$1,605.5m at the end of 2018,
approximately 1.3 per cent higher than that
recorded in 2017.
Notwithstanding the
increase in the debt stock, the debt-to-GDP
ratio fell to 73.1 per cent from 75.3 per cent
in December 2017. The expansion in the debt
stock was attributable to an increase in both
the domestic and external debt of the central
government. The central government’s
domestic debt stock fell by 5.5 per cent to
$488.0m. The expansion was associated with
increase in overdraft facilities and accounts
payables, while the stock of loans fell.
Conversely, the central government’s external
portfolio was 1.1 per cent higher than the
previous year and stood at $984.5m, on
account of disbursements by international
creditors including CDB, the Kuwait Fund
and the OPEC Fund. Meanwhile, the debt
stock of public corporations, which comprise
less than 10.0 per cent of total outstanding
debt, was 10.7 per cent ($5.9m) lower at the
end of the period and stood at $133.0m,
attributable to principal repayments to some of
their major creditors.
Banking Sector Developments
Provisional data indicate that financial
conditions in St Vincent and the Grenadines
remained mixed during 2018, characterised
by an expansion in monetary liabilities and
a contraction in outstanding credit to key
productive sectors.
Consistent with the general expansion in
economic activity, total monetary liabilities
(M2) of the banking system grew by