Strong GDP Growth Expected in 2022/2023

A local financial expert is predicting the Bahamian economy may see a return to pre-pandemic levels by the 2024. Royal Fidelity Vice President of Investments David Slatter crunches the numbers at the company’s Investor Forum.

The International Monetary Fund is predicting two-percent growth of real GDP for The Bahamas in 2021. Eight-percent in 2022. And, four percent in 2024. RF VP of Investments, David Slatter says this comes after a rough year in 2020, which saw GDP fall by 14.5 percent.

However the IMF predicts that GDP at the end of 2023 will still be two percent below 2019.

So what does that mean for the way forward?

Tourism will play a huge role in economic recovery. Looking at the trends, slatter says the first quarter of 2021 was 80 percent below the same period in 2019. By the last quarter of 2021, arrivals were only 21-percent below the same period in 2019.

Slatter says by 2022 that shortfall is expected to gets smaller and smaller and hopefully by 2023 The Bahamas will be back to where it was in 2019.

However government debt is a cause for concern.

Slatter says the country needs to be more prudent with finances, to ensure we can handle our debt load.