International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) focuses on efficient, sustainable, and fair pension schemes. Despite recent reform efforts, the financial sustainability of the ECCU’s defined benefit social security schemes remains under strain, largely reflecting the still relatively low contributions and generous payouts. This, coupled with a rapidly ageing population and high labor market informality, increases the need for a comprehensive review and adoption of further parametric and non-parametric reforms of the pension systems to avoid abrupt and more sizable adjustments in the future as well as to reduce the risks of old-age poverty. This annex reviews pension schemes in the ECCU, with a focus on assessing their design and performance and identifying policy options to improve their efficiency, fairness, and sustainability. Key recommendations include swift adoption of further comprehensive reforms to address design weaknesses, improving coverage, investment strategy, administrative efficiency, and transparency, and establishing automatic adjustment mechanisms.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This 2015 Article IV Consultation highlights that the economic situation of St. Kitts and Nevis has continued to improve since the completion of the IMF-supported home-grown economic program in July 2014. Continued rapid inflows under the Citizenship-By Investment program have led to a surge in construction activity, and supported a large increase in government and Sugar Industry Diversification Fund investments and spending, including on the People Employment Program. These factors, together with the ongoing recovery in tourist arrivals fueled rapid GDP growth of about 6 percent in 2013 and 2014. The near-term outlook remains strong, but there are risks on the horizon.