PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, (CMC) – Suriname said Wednesday it is beginning to emerge from its economic problems over the past two years and is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel as the Dutch-speaking Caribbean Community (Caricom) country continues with a two-year multi-million dollar Stand-By Agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“What we are seeing developing in our economy, our fiscal deficit is coming under control, our current account… has been improving, especially in the last quarter. We think that with the two years… we should be out of the trouble that we had been into,” Finance Minister Gillmore Hoefdraad told the Caribbean Media Corporation ( CMC).

The Washington-based financial institution provided Suriname with a US$478-million loan to facilitate the country’s adjustment to the fall in the prices of major commodity exports, restore confidence, and pave the way to economic recovery.

The programme also includes reforms to the exchange rate and monetary policy framework, to enhance Suriname’s resilience to the current and to possible future shocks, and allow a steady rebuilding of foreign reserves.

Hoefdraad said that the revenue from the mining sector in 2015 was 10 per cent of what it used to be in 2010.

He said Suriname sought to deal with the matter through its own home-grown adjustment programme, which meant a “very sharp cut in expenditure, especially in goods and services, efficiency bringing in subsidies, eliminating a great part of subsidies in water supplies, and increasing the fuel tax.

“We did an evaluation in November last year and with some other …measures on the expenditure side… we went to the Fund and said we are looking for financing,” he added.

Hoefdraad, who was attending the 2016 High Level Caribbean Forum bringing together Caribbean finance ministers, prime ministers, central bank governors as well as donors, said that the event provided an opportunity for regional countries to discuss issues affecting the growth of their respective economies.

The forum was organised by the IMF, and the delegates discussed issues such as global and regional challenges to growth, competitiveness, and oil prices; spillovers from Cuba, and policies to address de-risking.

“The exchanging of views is very important and, of course, to keep engaged with the IMF when it comes to our own Stand-By Arrangement and to discuss the development of how we see the Caribbean region as a whole,” he added.

He said after a very tough year “we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. we have some game changes in our economy. In the oil industry our refinery is coming on stream… and in the area of gold, we have a new gold mine coming on stream.

“So for us there’s finally some breath that we can have and this is exactly the forum that we can exchange views,” he said, noting that Suriname is also interested in how countries like Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica are dealing with their economic situations.

But the finance minister expressed disappointment at Suriname not being able to export freely to Caricom.

“We have a long story in this. Suriname joined the Caricom in the 1990s and Suriname has been very open, very receptive to imports from the Caribbean because we believe that importing from our neighbours …can be beneficial for all of us.

“We have been dreaming of the Single Market and Economy (CSME) for a couple of decades already, and one disappointment that I always saw as an economist is that the trade within the region is so low,” he said, noting that “for us, Suriname, especially in this period when we are diversifying our economy, it would be a major step of having more access to the Caribbean markets”.

But Hoefdraad said all Caricom countries “should be working towards the CSME” that allows for the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services across the region. “The question we should be asking ourselves is how much did we do to diversify our economies that we can all benefit,” he said.

“It is amazing that we have been able to come up with trade swaps with other countries, it is amazing that the Chinese are able to provide some guarantees for imports and support for exports. As a region, as neighbours we should be able to do that.”

He said he understands the food bill for the Caribbean, for example, is US$5 billion “and I would say let’s start with ourselves, let’s start exchanging products with ourselves. That’s the first step for meaningful integration, and that is something we will put on the agenda,” he told CMC.