ECCB 2014-2015 Annual Report and Statement of Accounts

EASTERN CARIBBEAN CENTRAL BANK

and upload of the new version. New servers were also provided to Anguilla and Antigua and Barbuda to facilitate this process.

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

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

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ECCB ANNUAL REPORT 2014/2015