Wednesday, Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant installed Jude Patrick Salomon (a career civil servant in the Ministry) as Minister of the Economy and Finance (replacing outgoing Minister Yves Romain Bastien), reminding him if it is necessary, that the struggle against poverty and the battle for growth, constitute the guiding thread of the economic policy of his Government.

In his speech, the new Minister Salomon attributed the current economic situation of Haiti: growth rate of 1.4% for 2016, negative forecasts for 2017, gross domestic product (GDP) of 8.77 billion US dollars and a GDP per capita of 728 dollars... to a "flagrant lack of investment due in particular to a lack of growth in the country, an unstable security climate and intermittent social upheavals," stating that "[...] miracle solutions do not exist, that the solutions can be found at several levels and must be a multi-handed, multi-year project." He also pointed out the discount of the gourde, tax revenues for fiscal year 2015-2016 of only 49.7 billion gourdes while the budget was forecasting 60 billion gourdes...

He explained that in order to implement the political vision of President Jovenel Moïse, it will be a question of "appealing to entrepreneurship in all fields", particularly in agriculture. "Creating wealth for the benefit of the community can only be achieved through smart fiscal reform and good economic governance [...]" concluding "Intelligence is needed to innovate, courage to take difficult decisions, seriousness to rationalize, leadership to lead the way and build accountability and collective good faith to assume each share of responsibility."

Jack Guy Lafontant speaking to the new Minister Solomon said "[...] the situation is serious. The situation of the population is deteriorating every day and the impoverishment of the middle class is getting worse [...] The ministry entrusted to you is called upon to play a leading role in the new economic policy which will be implemented by my Government, and whose main objective is to win the growth bet as desired and promised by the President of the Republic [...] The Ministry must pay particular attention to its role of economic promotion and support to the development of enterprises; Strengthen coordination and synergy between the budgeting, financing and development planning functions in order to strengthen institutional capacities in the design and implementation of public policies for strong and sustainable growth [...]"

Speech by Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant :

HL/ HaitiLibre