Bank of Saint Lucia | Online Banking

JA. Select

9,579.45

13.62

0.14%

TTSE Composite Index

1,281.45

9.41

0.64%

BSE Composite Index

596.27

11.09

0.00%

DOW Jones Indus AVG

29,263.48

219.75

0.75%

S & P 500

3,557.54

24.33

0.68%

NASDAQ

11,854.97

49.74

0.42%

NIKKEI 225

25,527.37

106.97

0.42%

STOXX 600

389.61

0.55

0.14%

FTSE 100

6,351.45

11.69

0.18%

EUR-USD

1.186

0.00

0.38%

USD-JPY

103.86

0.1400

0.1350%

GBP-USD

1.33

0.01

0.66%

ECSE Index

434.079

0.00

0.00%

JSE Main

388,463.40

1154.90

0.30%

Brent Crude Futr

44.96

0.58

1.29%

Gold 100 Oz Futr

1,872.40

9.20

0.49%

Silver Future

24.36

0.40

(1.65)%

JA. Select

TTSE Composite Index

BSE Composite Index

DOW Jones Indus AVG

S & P 500

NASDAQ

NIKKEI 225

STOXX 600

FTSE 100

EUR-USD

USD-JPY

GBP-USD

ECSE Index

JSE Main

Brent Crude Futr

Gold 100 Oz Futr

Silver Future

The Daily Global Market Performance Click Here

ECFH Closing Price as at November 20, 2020: $4.49

Market News

November 23, 2020

Grenada facing major budget cuts

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada – Members of the Finance Committee in the House of Representatives were told to prepare for major expenditure cuts in the budget for 2021.

It’s reported that during a town hall meeting late Wednesday, the committee was informed that the budget of several government ministries would be reduced due to a drop in revenue that was attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is the first time in six years that we can say we are having a serious problem with raising revenue. We are going through a tough time with this pandemic, it’s a tough time indeed, Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell announced in a town hall meeting held in the parish of St David on Wednesday night.

The 2021 annual estimate of Revenue and Expenditure will be the first to be presented by Gregory Bowen who became the Finance Minister following a cabinet reshuffle in September, but which became effective on October 5.

A date is yet to be announced for its presentation but traditional it’s normally done the last Friday in November.

“The Minister of finance at a Finance Committee meeting today in preparation for budget demonstrated that we have to cut some of the expenditures we normally do because revenue has dropped. Friends that is life and I want our people to understand this,” Dr Mitchell told the meeting that was aired live using social media platforms.

The Finance Committee is a Parliamentary Committee in the Lower House or House of Representatives which must give formal input in finalising the annual budget. It is chaired by the Minister for Finance, and the members are all the elected members in Lower House of Parliament.

Mitchell who previously served as Finance Minister explained to the Town hall meeting that the drop in revenue will affect Central Government’s fulfil all demands placed on Government despite increasing request.

“Because you get the impression, although some hear us saying revenue has dropped you getting more and more demand for services. Understand that if our revenue has dropped our expectation must drop to some extent,” he said while giving the assurance that Government will not cut expenditure in areas where people need government help.

“Where we have to make the cuts will be doing so in areas where we feel the country can withstand that cut that we will be making. We cannot ask the guy who is already suffering, who is marginalised to take the pressure in terms of hardship, he must be given Government support more than any other group,” the Prime Minister said. (CMC)

Article Published November 23, 2020 on nationnews.com

Antigua and Barbuda: Cabinet considers tough measures as it looks to economic recovery in 2021

The government is seriously considering introducing several austerity measures in the new year as the economy continues to suffer the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Gaston Browne, said the proposed measures have become necessary as the country has seen a sharp decline in revenues since the pandemic brought economic activity to a virtual standstill.

On this week’s Browne and Browne show, the prime minister said revenue generated in the first quarter of 2020 were set to set a national record, but the arrival of the coronavirus in the country at the end of March and subsequent lockdown crippled economic progress and slowed revenue generation significantly. According to the finance minister, revenues for the first quarter of this year outstripped revenues for the same period in 2019 by approximately $200 million.

By the end of September 2020, however, revenues were $200 million less than in the corresponding period last year.

“What this means is that there has been a $400 million turn around in our revenues and while we fully anticipated that revenues will amount to over $1 billion by the end of the year, we will be happy if we are able to collect about $750 million by December 31,” he 3explained.

He noted that at the end of September revenues amounted to just $562 million against the $765 million collected during the same period last year.

“We were on track to record one of the best years ever for the economy, but unfortunately due to COVID all our gains have since been eroded and this has been a severe strain on the level of government’s cash flow,” Browne explained. Faced with the harsh reality of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s economy, and the possibility of further losses until a vaccine is widely distributed by the middle of next year, the prime minister said that the Cabinet considered the matter.

“We have no choice going into 2021 but to realign revenues with our expenditures. Last Wednesday, Cabinet looked at some options that we are contemplating to adopt into the upcoming year. There are no final decisions yet on these measures, but I feel that it is important to alert the public on these possibilities,” he stated. PM Browne said whatever measures are put in place, they will not affect government bond holders as he is keen to ensure that confidence in the government’s security remains high.

Similarly, arrangements with local banks will not be affected. The measures include the following: • Reducing real estate rentals by government from an average of 3 to 5 percent to 3 percent over the next 36 months. • Reducing the rate of rental of heavy duty equipment, backhoe and trucks etc., to 33.33 percent. • Strengthening property tax collection by ensuring that all properties are captured. This is expected to significantly increase the yield. • Enhance the collection of all taxes. Focus on AnB properties ensuring that they pay their ABST • Reduce supplier-creditor credit by 50 percent including converting a portion to government bonds. • Consider swapping government lands to write off some debts in some cases.

Article Published November 23, 2020 on antiguanewsroom.com

BOJ projects 3% growth in post-COVID rebound

Bank of Jamaica, BOJ, is projecting growth of three per cent for Jamaica by March 2022, but notes the rebound could be nearly three times that estimate.

“The bank projects a partial rebound of about 3.0 per cent growth will commence in financial year 2021-22, and could possibly be as high as 8.0 per cent if there is a strong recovery in tourism. However, the Jamaican economy is not expected to return to pre-COVID-19 levels before financial year 2022-23,” said BOJ Governor Richard Byles at his quarterly briefing on monetary policy and the economy on Thursday.

The central bank expects slightly higher inflation within the October-December 2020 quarter due to the persistent rain, and its forecasts indicate that the target range of 4 to 6 per cent could be breached.

The BOJ expects consumer prices to rise by 5.5 to 6.5 per cent in the December quarter, 6.0 to 7.0 per cent in March 2021, and 4.0 to 5.0 per cent in the June 2021 quarter.

“We are therefore indicating that there is some risk that inflation could breach the upper end of the target range in both December 2020 and during the March 2021 quarter,” said Byles, who attributed the expected rise to rain-induced rises in food prices, and an expected jump in utility bills. “We again stress that these spikes will be temporary, and wish to assure that once we get through this blip, our forecast is for inflation to remain within target over the next two years,” he said.

Additionally, the BOJ said that banks continue to hold sufficient capital, but that they should still continue holding off on paying dividends to those who hold over 1.0 per cent shareholding. Non-performing loans stand at 2.8 per cent across the financial system, or “well below the benchmark of 10 per cent,” said Byles.

In April, banks and other deposit-taking institutions agreed to halt dividends for a year, which was later amended to allow for distributions to a subgroup of minority owners who hold less than a per cent in shareholding.

Byles said that stock market investors, looking for the resumption of dividends, should look to strides made to control the pandemic and improvement in the economy, rather than tracking a new calendar or financial year.

“We are still looking to see more stability,” he said.

Byles lauded the banks for holding back on dividends, which both safeguarded their capital and obviated the need to remit distributions overseas by the banks with foreign ownership. He also remarked on the restraint exercised by financial institutions on the issuing of foreign-currency instruments, which would have reduced pressure on foreign exchange in the system.

The Jamaica currency was down 6.7 per cent up to the end of October, way ahead of the 2.6 per cent depreciation recorded a year ago. Byles said that the depreciation was “still moderate under the circumstances,” in reference to the pandemic. At end-October, in excess of US$240 million was sold to the market to augment supplies since the start of the pandemic, the central bank said.

Article Published November 20, 2020 on jamaica-gleaner.com

AstraZeneca says COVID-19 'vaccine for the world' can be 90% effective

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine could be around 90% effective, giving the world another weapon to fight the global pandemic and potentially cheaper to make, easier to distribute and faster to scale-up than rivals.

The British drugmaker said it will have as many as 200 million doses by the end of 2020 - around four times as many as U.S. competitor Pfizer. Seven hundred million doses could be ready globally as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2021.

The vaccine was 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 when it was administered as a half dose followed by a full dose at least a month later, according to data from late-stage trials in Britain and Brazil. No serious safety events were confirmed, the company said.

“This means we have a vaccine for the world,” said Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford University vaccine group that developed the drug.

The vaccine’s cost works out at just a few dollars a shot, a fraction of the price of drugs from Pfizer and Moderna, which use a more unconventional technology.

And it can be transported and stored at normal fridge temperatures, which proponents say would make it easier to distribute, especially in poor countries, than Pfizer’s, which needs to be shipped and stored at -70C, the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter.

The effectiveness of AstraZeneca’s vaccine depended on the dosing, and fell to just 62% when given as two full doses rather than a half-dose first. But scientists cautioned against seeing this as evidence that it would be less useful than rivals. Vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna each prevented about 95% of cases according to interim data from their late-stage trials.

“I think it is a real fool’s errand to start trying to pick these three (Pfizer/Moderna/Astra) apart on the basis of snippets of phase 3 data from press releases,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London.

“For the bigger picture, my suspicion is that by the time we are a year down the line, we’ll be using all three vaccines with about 90% protection - and we’ll be a lot happier.”

Pascal Soriot, Astra’s chief executive, said the data showing that an initial half dose was more effective than two full doses was good news, as more people could be vaccinated faster with a limited supply.

‘INCREDIBLY EXCITING’

AstraZeneca’s preliminary trial comes as a new wave of infections has hurt economies, particularly in Europe and the United States. Nearly 1.4 million people have died in the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Britain is among countries that pre-bought large quantities of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and officials there said its success means normal life can return sooner. Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the results as “incredibly exciting”.

Shares and oil prices rose as investors bet the rollout of another vaccine would revive the global economy next year.

The STOXX index of Europe’s 600 largest shares rose 0.5% to its highest since February. Nevertheless, AstraZeneca’s own shares fell 1.5% as traders perceived the efficacy data as disappointing compared with rivals.

Public health experts say the world will need many vaccines to meet global demand.

The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a modified version of a chimpanzee common cold virus to deliver instructions to cells to fight the target virus, a traditional approach to vaccine development and different from the path taken by Pfizer and Moderna, which rely on new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA).

AstraZeneca, one of Britain’s most valuable listed companies, will now immediately prepare regulatory submission of the data to authorities around the world that have a framework in place for conditional or early approval.

It will also seek an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization to speed up availability in low-income countries. In parallel, the full analysis of the interim results is being submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Article Published November 23, 2020 on reuters.com