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NEWS RELEASE

59^th meeting of the Monetary Council of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB)

Friday July 27, 2007, St. George’s: At the 59^th meeting of the Monetary Council of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) in Anguilla, on 21 July 2007, Dr. the Right Honourable Keith Mitchell was warmly welcomed in his capacity of Minister of Finance Grenada, after an absence of seven years.

The Meeting was chaired by Honourable Victor Banks, Minister of Finance Anguilla, who took over the chairmanship from Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of St. Vincent and the Grenadines whose tenure of office as chairman had expired. The protocol of the Monetary Council is that chairmanship is rotated annually among the eight member countries.

The other members of the council present at the Meeting were:

ü The Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Commonwealth of Dominica;

ü Dr. the Honourable Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, St. Kitts and Nevis;

ü The Honourable Stephenson King, Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Saint Lucia;

ü Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, St. Vincent and the Grenadines;

ü Mr. Whitfield Harris, Jr. Financial Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Antigua and Barbuda (Temporary Alternate Member);

ü Mr. John Skerrit, Honourable Financial Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Montserrat (Temporary Alternate Member).

At the Meeting, the council members were presented with the Governor’s Report on monetary and credit conditions, as mandated in Article 7(2) of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Agreement 1983, and deliberated on the policy issues raised in the report.

Some of the points highlighted in the report included:

ü Growth of 12.2% in the total deposits of the commercial banking system over the year ended April 2007. It was cited that the main factors contributing to this growth were strong foreign direct investment inflows, vibrant construction activity relating to preparations for Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007, and the associated buoyancy in economic activity;

ü An increase of 18.4% in domestic credit during the 12 months ended April 2007; and

ü The improvement of the ECCU price competitiveness in the international market which indicates positive implications for the region’s major foreign exchange earner, Tourism.

The Council also noted that the region’s monetary and credit conditions are expected to remain broadly favourable for continued economic expansion and for financial and currency stability for the rest of 2007.

In terms of monetary policy assessment, the Council agreed, for the short term, to maintain the Central Bank’s administered interest rates as follows:

ü The Central Bank’s discount rate at 6.5%

ü The minimum rate of interest on savings deposits at 3.0%

The meeting also touched on issues relating to the stability of the financial sector; the uniform legislation for the ECCU; commercial bank’s fees and charges; initiatives for the promotion of private sector development in the ECCU; and transparency practices for monetary policy at the ECCU.

The entire report of the meeting is available at http://www.eccb-centralbank.org/