Economic and Financial Policies of the Government of Barbados

In relation to the general level of economic activity the expansion of our economy continued in 2005 with the realisation of real growth at 4.1% following upon the rate of 4.8% recorded in 2004. 8 The significance of this is that our economy is now on a development path at the base of which is a rate of growth that for two years now has substantially exceeded the target of 3%. The economic challenges we therefore face in large measures are those that arise not from too little, but from too fast a pace of economic expansion. The economy’s growth in recent years was driven by the extraordinary performance of the hospitality industry. This however, was not the case in 2005. Without the benefit of an English cricket tour, long stay visitors in 2005 matched the numbers in 2004 while cruise arrivals up to October fell to 425,933 from the level of 534,136 for the corresponding period of 2004, a 20% decline. Value added for the tourism sector as a whole fell by 4.2% in 2005.