By now, you should all know what prompted this initiative of the Bank. At the risk of repeating myself, I have spoken out about the many grievances spanning a wide range of issues from dissatisfied customers knocking at the door of the central bank. They complain about practices that are crying out for reform.
This, combined with the growing inability of regional governments to generate high enough primary fiscal surpluses for debt servicing, contributed to a large public debt overhang. Gross public debt in the Caribbean climbed rapidly from 65 percent of GDP in 1998 to a peak of almost 100 percent of GDP in 2002, before falling to a still elevated 80 percent of GDP in 2012.