Grenada and two other tourism-dependent countries in the region will receive funding for emergency financial assistance from The International Monetary Fund to help address the challenges posed by COVID19.
The Executive Board of the IMF approved the disbursements following requests made under the Rapid Credit Facility mechanism.
The approval will make available a combined 65.6 million US dollars in emergency financing to help Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica deal with the challenges created by COVID-19.
Tourism inflows essentially halted in mid-March,with ripple effects across other sectors.
The closure of the borders, coupled with the reduction of commercial activity, has had a crippling impact on economies.
A decline in fiscal revenues, together with additional direct health and social expenditures will temporarily increase fiscal deficit and financing needs.
IMF support will help cover some of these needs and allow the governments to ease the impact on the population, such as upgrading public health facilities and providing social assistance to the vulnerable and affected sectors.
To address the pandemic, the authorities announced measures to help employees and households, including income support to the unemployed, tax relief, and providing cash transfers to the most vulnerable and affected.
