“USD as the national currency will do the Caribbean good”

PARAMARIBO/BARBADOS - Countries in the Caribbean will have to consider introducing the US dollar as the official currency. This proposal comes from Worrell DeLisle, the former governor of the Central Bank of Barbados. This should also apply to Suriname and Guyana, according to DeLisle, who wrote an extensive article about this in the July edition of his ‘Monthly Economic Newsletter’. According to the economist, it is an illusion that countries will lose part of their sovereignty if they abolish their own currency. The financial world is in a state of transformation in which all payments will very soon be made via the digital highway. The many local currencies in the region are, in DeLisle’s opinion, an obstacle to regional integration. By using the US dollar as the current currency in the Caribbean,

DeLisle expects more economic activity and integration to take place. “A Jamaican travelling to Haiti, a Guianese going to Suriname, a Dominican travelling to Guadeloupe or a Trinidadian going to Barbados always carries US dollars with him. All hotel prices and oil and gas rates have been linked to the US dollar,” says the former top banker of Barbados. Caribbean countries are currently being looked at by the United States (US) because of their financial circuit. “Having one’s own currency makes a country more susceptible to sanctions from the US,” says DeLisle. As an example he cites Iran and Cuba where wage earners earn less and less because of American sanctions. “The sanctions are effective because Cubans and Iranians receive their wages in the local currency, the value of which continues to decline because of the minimal access these countries have to American dollars.