DFC Introduces a Special Line of Credit for Tourism Stakeholders

Dean Barrow

That statement was made this morning at a press conference when Prime Minister Barrow announced that government, through the Development Finance Corporation, DFC, is rolling out ten million dollars for on-lending to stakeholders in the tourism industry.  Eligible businesses, small, medium and large, can access funds that have been sourced, in part, from the Caribbean Development Bank at a fixed interest rate of six percent.  The process may not see the monies being disbursed ahead of the August fifteenth reopening of the Philip Goldson International Airport, however, qualified borrowers would be able to access funds in the weeks ahead.  PM Barrow, in discussing the origins of the programmne, said that government had to find a way to meet CDB’s requirements while at the same time be able to on-lend the monies at a reduced interest rate.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“The consolidated line of credit that the DFC has from CDB is the source or was to have been the source of the financing that DFC wished to provide to tourism stakeholders.  However, the conditionality that governed that CDB line included a restriction on DFC using any of the money to lend for working capital purposes and so we needed to find a workaround where that was concerned.  Far more importantly, the lending rate to DFC meant that after DFC tacked on its administration fee which of course would have been extremely modest, as modest as the DFC could have made it.  But still it would have had to naturally be an ingredient in their on-lending to the tourism sector.  We were looking at a possible interest rate to the stakeholders of eight percent or more.  I had promised at that time that I would try personally to intervene with the president of the CDB to see if we could get a lower interest rate.”