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Grenada is on the road to restructuring its debt. Standard and Poors downgraded Grenada twice since hurricane Ivan struck the island in September from a B- to a D.

Natasha Marquez, a senior policy analyst with the Grenada government, said the downgrading was not unexpected. "We're not disappointed , per se. Standard & Poors has their guidelines which they follow," she said in a phone interview last week.

"We expected that would have happened given Ivan and all the drama that happened after Ivan" said Marquez, a UWI, Cave Hill, Barbados-educated economist. "There was nothing we could do about it. It was a case of being between a rock and a hard place."

Marquez, who has an MBA in finance from the University of Lincoln in London, said before Ivan, Grenada was putting a restructuring plan in place, but it now has to work faster because "we wouldn't want things to stay that way." To this end, the former budget analyst with the Ministry of Finance said Grenada has contracted the New York City headquartered Bear Stearns, a global investment banking, securities trading and brokerage firm, as its financial adviser. The firm's work is being paid for by donors.

Bear Stearns assists corporations, institutions, governments and individuals to realise their financial objectives. "As it stand now, our rating would be restored once we outline our restructuring plan" Marquez said. "Bear Stearns floated a US$100 million bond for us."

Marquez said the bond was the first step in the restructuring process, after which a firm plan will be outlined. "We don't want to do it piecemeal, but the entire portfolio," she said. "We're hoping that could be wrapped up in the next month or so."

On the subject of rebuilding, Marquez said the priority has been on restoring housing. She said regional neighbours Barbados and Guyana have been "lending assistance" in the form of skilled labour through such agencies as USAID.

Aid agencies have divided the country into sections with each one adopting particular projects, Marquez said. "Before Ivan, the focus was on debt management and VAT. We were planning to introduce it (VAT) in January 2006," Marquez said. "Since Ivan, the focus is now on restructuring. Now we have to look at it from a different angle."

(Reproduced from the February 27, 2005 edition of the Business Guardian of the Trinidad Guardian newspaper)