By Caribbean News Global contributor
ST GEORGES, Grenada – With remittances accounting for approximately 11 percent of Grenada’s Gross Domestic Product, the government of Grenada has scheduled a two-day conference July 27-28 at the Grenada Trade Center, to discuss a medium and long-term strategy to maximise the development impact of remittances, direct diaspora investment, and philanthropy.
“The conference will bring together government representatives, diaspora organisations, representatives of financial institutions, Central Banks, and Credit Unions, among others,” a press statement on GOV.dg, said:
“Attendees will discuss facilitating remittance transfers and empowering stakeholders, migrant and diaspora led investments as well as migrant and diaspora contributions to skills and knowledge transfer. The workshop is expected to leveraging diaspora contributions for the development of Grenada, will seek to increase knowledge of best practices to develop a comprehensive approach to remittances, to help government and stakeholders tap into the potential for diaspora direct investment.”
Head of the diaspora office in Grenada, Derrick James said: “Israel has a good remittance structure from which Grenada can adopt best practices. Israelis in the diaspora contribute significantly to the development of their country through remittances.”
The two-day conference will also be used to identify effective policies to increase development impact and seek buy-in from key stakeholders, including the identification of key elements to develop a five-year roadmap to promote investments and savings in relation to remittances identified.
In keeping with the conference expectations include methods at: “Increasing the remittances that come in, will result in more money being available to help in the development of the country,” moreover, “at the conclusion of the conference, we plan to develop a final document, which we will present to the government, which will inturn examine the potential to create relevant policies,” said James. “We will then need to go to the banks to have discussions and we will also need to have a conversation with members of the diaspora since they are the ones who remit the funds,” he added.
