The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

There seems to be no end of bad news for The Bahamas economy recently, highlighted by Standard & Poor’s slashing GDP growth estimates for 2016.

But there is hope if the leadership is serious about policies to help turn the economy around. The Economic Freedom of the World Report (EFW) that measures levels of personal choice, ability to enter markets, security of privately-owned property, rule of law and more is a good place to start.

The EFW analyses the policies and institutions of 157 countries and territories and confirms how economic freedom brings prosperity about. The Bahamas currently ranks 37th (down from 10th place just a couple of decades ago) among the 157 jurisdictions as follows:

Legal system and property rights: 6.61 out of 10.

Access to sound money: 7.11 out of 10.

Freedom to trade internationally: 6.34 out of 10.

Regulation of credit, labour and business: 8.91 out of 10.

Advances/improvements will not be seen overnight of course, but if objectives were set to reach a rating of 7.5 in each of the top three categories, while maintaining an 8.9 to 9.0 in the fourth category, over the next two to three years the economy should make strides toward improvement as seen in other countries that perform better than The Bahamas.

More than likely, the powers that be will reject these ideas, as they have done for decades now, and continue to find ways to make it harder for businesses to be profitable through continual rises in regulations and taxes, exacerbating the slide. The exact opposite of what they should be doing, of course.

Regretfully, the old adage of doing the same thing expecting different results continues to apply.

RICK LOWE

President, The Nassau Institute,

November 13, 2015.