The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) acknowledges that small businesses are the engine of economic growth and activity and advises that the way business is done in the region needs to be revolutionised.
This is the focus of this week’s episode of ECCB Connects, the Bank’s weekly public education outreach programme.
The episode features excerpts from the May edition of ECCB Digital Dialogues in which the panellists: Private Sector Lead Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank and Executive Director, Compete Caribbean – Dr Sylvia Dohnert; Owner and Managing Director Belmont Estate, Grenada – Shadel Compton and CEO and Co-Founder mCAT Innovations Inc – Ashton Fearon, examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses. They also explore the steps businesses owners can take to help their businesses rebound and how the businesses can be repositioned to benefit from opportunities the pandemic presents.
Compton and Fearon highlight the measures they have taken to ensure their businesses survive the impact of the pandemic.
In addressing the issue of improving the Ease of Doing Business in the region, the Governor of the ECCB, Timothy N. J. Antoine, outlines some of the projects and initiatives the Bank has implemented to improve the business climate in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
These include: the Partial Credit Guarantee Facility, launched in October 2020; to assist small businesses; the Regional Digital Transformation Project; and the launch of DCash, the digital version of the EC currency.
For more views expressed on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses, view this week’s episode of ECCB Connects on the ECCB website www.eccb-centralbank.org and its social media pages.
