Common Economic Policies
Dollar; strengthening and enhancing the financial sector; promoting fiscal and debt sustainability; and supporting economic development. Fellow citizens of the Currency Union, this Plan is about you and for you. The ECCB cannot do it alone. Therefore, collaborative and collective action is critical. The ECCB will work closely with Participating Governments, the business community, labour unions, churches and other social partners, development partners and fully engaged citizens.”
HISTORY
The common currency and the ECCB have therefore benefitted the seven Protocol and one Associate Member States of the OECS in a manner that would have been difficult to attain, if each country had possessed its own central bank and national currency. Multi-state central banks – central banks owned by several countries – like the ECCB, are rare as there are only three others in the world, attesting to the value and uniqueness of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. These are: the European Central Bank (ECB), which was established by the EU in 1998, fifteen years after the ECCB though European regional integration began in 1956; the Central Bank of West African States (French: Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, BCEAO- formed in 1962) and the Bank of Central African States (French: Banque des États de l’Afrique Centrale, BEACH formed in 1972).
ECONOMICS
Through the ECCB, its member countries pool the foreign currencies that they earn from their exports of goods and services and invest these aggregate foreign reserves in the international market. This combined investment gains more profits for each country than each would have gained individually, and is a source of additional strength for the EC dollar. In times of economic difficulties or natural disasters in one country, the combined financial resources of the group are also available to assist the ones that are in need.
In its Strategic Plan for 2017-2021, the ECCB affirms the principles that have guided its work and the successful application of which has brought the Bank international recognition: “Over the next five years, our Central Bank will endeavour to advance the good of the people of our region by maintaining a strong and stable Eastern Caribbean Page 31
