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If locals are to benefit from economy, they must be able to fill jobs – Premier
In his first Budget Address delivered on November 29, 2022, the Premier noted that one very important thing the VI must consider in 2023 looking forward, is that in order to sustain growth in the local economy, provisions and preparations must be made for increasing the local production capacity.
Increasing local capacity
“This is important. If we want to achieve our goals we must source the resources. But also, if Virgin Islanders are to truly benefit from economic activity and growth in our homeland – as we rightfully should, then we must identify what skills will be needed, what resources must be needed, and we must ensure that our people are qualified to fill those positions when they emerge.”
He said the Government remains committed to strengthening local training and other institutions to accomplish this purpose.
He said the GDP numbers also speak to resilience, where nominal GDP growth projections for the Virgin Islands in 2021 was about 2.2%, following the contraction in 2020 due to the pandemic.
“The evidence to support this growth was in the return of activities in the tourism industry, with the increase of economic activities within the wholesale and retail industry and accommodation and food services.”
Growth happening across various sectors - Premiere
He said real estate activities also saw signs of growth following the decision to waive stamp duty for Belongers and Virgin Islanders for the purchase of property and that confidence in the financial services sector continued to show a small but steady growth, while activities within other economic areas realized increases as well.
“As we end 2022, we estimate tourism-related activities to continue to boost economic activities throughout many sectors including accommodation and food services, wholesale and retail and transportation and storage,” he said.
Additionally, he said with the ongoing Green initiatives throughout the Virgin Islands, it is expected that some spinoff activities will come which includes construction, in both the private and public sectors, along with the e-Government transformation initiative, and the administration of the COI recommendations all expected to also add value to the year’s annual economic growth.
Year could close out @ 3.5% growth - Premier
“Given these planned activities, the Ministry of Finance and the Government are confident that our output performance for 2022 could close the year at a 3.5% growth in comparison to 2021,” he said.
He said some of the plans for the medium-term are food security initiatives, the continuation of construction projects such as the Elmore Stoutt Technical Wing, the Jost Van Dyke Primary School, the Halls of Justice, the Eslyn Henley Richiez Learning Center, the Palm Grove Center Redevelopment, air access and Airport upgrades; financial services fee increases; the International Tax Authority (ITA) filing fee proposal; along with other initiatives.
From these plans, he said it is projected that nominal growth for the medium term will be 2.9% in 2023, all things being equal.
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25 Responses to “If locals are to benefit from economy, they must be able to fill jobs – Premier”
Why can't you bloggers challenge him on points which he said that would cause the economy to grow. Come people.
1. Take tourism seriously and we will have excellent employment opportunities available. Right now tourism is like a 12 cylinder car firing on 6.
2. Encourage and assist parents with doing a better job at parenting. Too many of our young VIslanders are just not suited for the workplace. I agree this is a tough one but something has to be done with the youths. My 2 cents. ????????
1. They take a local way under qualified put them over the position . Then when you make suggestions to improve the department the person knock it down because the idea did not come from them . Then they wait one year or six months after , bring up the idea as their own but cannot execute it because they do not understand the inner core behind it . That is one of the factors why the country is not growing .
Some locals will tell you point blank they not working for 6 dollars an hour . So who will fill the post ? You all have to blame yourselves for lots of things . Next the young people will tell you , their parents have apartments so they do not have to work
A lot of the trained locals do not come back to work here but choose greener pastures like Florida and Atlanta so who to blame