ECCB
ANNUAL REPORT 2014/2015
19
EASTERN CARIBBEAN CENTRAL BANK
Management Strategies (MTDS); preparation of
debt portfolio reviews; and debt data compilation.
Particular emphasis was placed on the utilisation of
debt management tools and the importance of ensuring
that they are used in tandem with each other to guide
policy decisions in the countries.
In collaboration with CEMLA, work was also
undertaken in the area of debt relief and sustainability
analysis. A regional workshop on debt analysis
was held from 1 to 10 October 2014, followed by
the preparation of national debt relief strategies by
the countries which will in turn feed into a regional
strategy for debt relief and debt sustainability. Case
studies were also conducted on three countries –
Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Lucia.
Improvement in the management of debt statistics
continued to be a focus during the year. In
collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat,
technical assistance was provided to member
countries in upgrading their systems to a new version
of the Commonwealth Secretariat Debt Recording and
Management System (CS-DRMS) – the debt software
used by the ECCU countries. This upgraded version
of CS-DRMS, which was released in 2014 is expected
to be a powerful and invaluable tool for managing
public debt in many countries based on internationally
regarded sound practices and a country specific
environment. This therefore required that some
countries merge their external and domestic databases
that were housed in the previous version of the software
as well as upgrade all pre-existing databases to this
new version. Assistance was provided in testing the
software and addressing issues related to the merger
and upload of the new version. New servers were
also provided to Anguilla and Antigua and Barbuda to
facilitate this process.
ECCB Resident Representative, Anguilla
Ms Marilyn Bartlett-Richardson presents server to
representatives of Anguilla Debt Unit
ECCB Resident Representative, Antigua and Barbuda
Mr Albert Lockhart presents server to
representative of Antigua and Barbuda Debt Unit
Given the need for development of domestic markets
and diversification of debt portfolios in the current
environment, officers from the debt management
units participated in a one-week workshop designed
to expose staff to the role and functions of the RGSM
in order to improve the efficiency in the management
