Interview with Hon. Dennis Cornwall, Minister for Finance, Grenada

11 Jul Interview with Hon. Dennis Cornwall, Minister for Finance, Grenada

With the US being Grenada’s largest trading partner, how do you see this relationship evolving, especially economic cooperation and investment?

Grenada is an open country, and we have relationships with several countries around the world. The largestpartner of Grenada is the United States because we import a large volume of food and other supplies from the US.

We also do business on the tourism side with the US. In other words, most of our tourists come from the US and Canada. We also ship the products we create in the country, like our nutmeg products, nutmeg oil, and rums. All those things get to the US at some point in time. We know that there is a trading imbalance because we import much more than we export to the US, for example. But we produce quality products to export to the US.

When you look at other things that we have been involved in, we have seen an increase in flights from the US, Canada, and Europe. That is because of some of the upgrades that we have in the tourism product, the upgrade of the airport and other things that helped promote Grenada in a big way in the international market. We have had a new flight out of Boston with JetBlue. So we have at least two flights from the US, one from New York, and one from Boston. We have been trying to grow that market. On the cruise ship side of things, we also have a very active promotion going on and we can tell you that the volume of ships that we get from the US and other places has been increasing.  Tourism is making a share of the contribution to the GDP of this country. It contributes around 50% of the GDP of our country at this time.

How is your ministry working alongside the Ministry of Tourism in this case to maintain strong foreign capital inflows from tourism while making its income more stable and sustainable?

The Ministry of Finance is a key ministry in the country that collaborates with other departments and ministries to make sure that we carry the load with them. We do have a very close relationship with the Ministry of Tourism. We participated in some of the forums that they have. For example, whenever a new cruise ship comes to a country, I have been part and parcel of the delegation receiving those new cruise ships on the island. We have a very good working relationship between the Ministry of Tourism, the Board of Tourism, and the Ministry of Finance.

Apart from tourism, are your financial and banking sectors also playing a key role in the economy? How are you working to support the diversification of the economy and what has been the success so far?

Grenada forms part of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. We have a common Central Bank, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Our contribution towards the economies of the ECC has been very significant.

The banking system has been very liquid, with a lot of cash in the system. One of the major complaints we’ve gotten from the banks is that sometimes they don’t always get projects that they would like to invest in. We try to help some of the companies to ensure that our small entrepreneurs can benefit from some of the money that is available in the banking system.

We also have a stock market in the Eastern Caribbean, the Eastern Caribbean Stock Exchange. That has helped the governments over the years to bring down pressures on the interest rate on debts, because we have been able to borrow, via Treasury bills on the stock market, quarterly and most of the time those subscriptions have been oversubscribed. Basically, you can go to the market and raise money via Treasury bills and bonds and be able to at least finance our activities when needed.

What specific strategies and initiatives is your ministry implementing to enhance digitalization within Grenada’s financial sector? How do you plan to ensure that these efforts contribute to economic growth and financial inclusion for all citizens?

We believe that digitalization is a key pillar in the economy of Grenada. We try to involve society in a more efficient way of doing business. In other words, we believe that the access people have in the capital city should be throughout the country. In other words, if you’re paying for a birth certificate, a death certificate, or a marriage certification in Saint George, it costs you 7 EC dollars. That should be the price that somebody pays in the rural areas. But if somebody right now in the rural parts of Grenada wants a birth certificate, they have to travel to Saint George, pay a bus or a taxi to get there and then still pay for the service. We are trying to make sure that this thing is throughout the island, that you can go to any area of service available and get it there at the same cost and same price and time frame.

Concerning some of our programs that benefit the poor and vulnerable in the country, we have also tried to bring those services online by providing, for example, for persons receiving social security, a card that they can be able to go to any point of sale of a bank and withdraw that money. There have been some delays in that area, but we are hoping to be able to fix that as soon as possible so that the person who benefits from the SEED program that we have in Grenada, which is a social transfer to needy persons, don’t have to travel to come to our revenue office or postal office to get their money. They can get their money by just placing the money on the card and they can access it through any point of sale or by ATM.

In attracting American investment, how is your country positioning itself to be a competitive option for investors, particularly in new and emerging sectors?

We are an open country, and we welcome investment from our partners. In particular, we say that the USA is one of our key trading partners. We welcome investments from the United States. We’ve had in the past various incentive programs that benefit specifically the hotel sectors where we gave concessions on building materials for example. We continue to review and refine those concessions.

We have also looked at making the transportation system in our country more efficient in that we are trying to look at importing electric vehicles as well as hybrid vehicles. We’ve tried to take steps to move the market from gasoline-type vehicles to electric vehicles as well as hybrid vehicles that use both gasoline and electricity. We believe that by doing that the country will be healthier. A nation that is not healthy, no matter how much money you pump into it, would not give you the objective we’re looking for at the end of the day.

We’re also looking at alternative energy production. For the last century, we have depended highly on fossil fuel generation of electricity. We are saying that we now need to move in the direction of alternative energy by using solar, wind and other types of energy that are available to us. Some would take up to 10 years to become practical. For example, geothermal has a process that could take up to 10 years to get there, but the aim is to reduce the cost of electricity for those who produce it as well as the users of those energy resources. We believe that if we can bring down our cost of electricity to 10-15 cents per kWh, compared to where we are at this stage, we would make great advances in our country. We welcome alternative energy.

We are open for business here in Grenada. Grenada is a safe country, it has potential. We are small but we have a place for investment that can enhance what we have done thus far. For example, over the years we have built our tourism product and we have a good tourism business going but we believe that other activities surrounding tourism that are taking place in the country can improve and enhance the economy of Grenada to make it a more sustainable country going forward. It can only get better if we expose ourselves to assistance from outside where we allow investors to come in and take advantage of the incentive packages that we offer those companies to make a business of their own and also to improve the status of the country.

On February 7th, 2024, we launched the celebration of the Jubilee anniversary of Grenada’s Independence. We know becoming an independent nation requires a lot of effort and sacrifices and we have to bring on board everybody. There is no room for leaving anyone behind because we cannot take half of the country and the rest remain behind struggling. We need to put steps in place and take decisions that bring the entire country up. By bringing the independent celebration over the year we’re trying to encourage and incorporate everybody. It is an inclusive situation that we’re trying to achieve at this point.

Grenada has an important diaspora in the US. Are you trying to bring them back with their expertise?

We believe that for Grenada to truly grow itself, we need to grow on several fronts and we are mindful that we have a diaspora population in the US and elsewhere in the world that can contribute immensely to the growth in Grenada. They’re welcome to come home and build their homes and invest in the country.

We also have another group of diaspora that we tend to call citizens who were brought on board under the Citizenship By Investment program. We don’t only want to be able to give someone a passport, but we encourage them to bring their family, bring their business, create a good environment and good products within Grenada, and be able to sell to the rest of the world. That way we can improve the economic condition, and the growth revenue for this country, and maximize Grenadian potential in the world. We welcome everybody to this country.

What would be your final message to the readers of this report?

We came into office in June 2022 and in just under two years we have tried to move this nation forward on several fronts. We have tried to appease the situation in the country where workers are less likely to protest because of the practices of the government. We have implemented measures that make it easier for young men and women to be able to get licenses that allow them to get involved in the construction sector, the agricultural sector and so on because some of the restrictions that existed before created problems for them to be able to advance their businesses.

We have done quite a bit in terms of improving the social conditions in the country. We have recently piloted a project called the WASH program, which is water and sanitation in many of the homes. We are trying to at least avoid people having to use the wild to do their business and be able to operate in a more environmentally friendly situation in their homes.  We also have been helping the poor and vulnerable to improve their housing conditions – house repairs and building small houses. We’ve had some 600+ houses that we have to distribute to the nation. Those houses were built with assistance from the Chinese Government as well as the Government of Grenada, to ensure that we can make the housing situation in the country much better as we go by. There is a lot more to be done. We are also looking at what we are calling Project 500 – 500 Grenadian-style houses. We have started a program and we have identified the lands, identified who would be the key players behind it and we are working towards making that a reality at some point in time.