Micronesia

VI electricity costs near region’s average

admin — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 20:00:02 +0000

VI electricity costs near region’s average

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admin Wed, 02/23/2022 - 20:00

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

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Business – The BVI Beacon

Original Article

VI electricity costs near region’s average

Recent studies of global broadband and mobile data pricing from United Kingdom-based telecommunications provider Cable.co.uk haven’t turned out well for the Virgin Islands, which has consistently shown to have some of the highest prices in the world for those services.

However, when it comes to electricity, the VI ranks near the middle of the pack regionally.

Just 11 out of 28 Caribbean countries have cheaper electricity than the VI, according to a study released last month from the company.

But the region as a whole is far behind most of the world, and the VI ultimately ranked 175 out of the 230 countries analysed in the study.

“The Caribbean consists of island nations where electricity generation tends to be more difficult,” the study noted.

The study found that the average cost of electricity in the VI is $0.225 per kilowatt-hour, with the territory’s lowest cost at $0.1675 per kWh and its highest at $0.24.

The average price in the Caribbean is $0.237.

Most Caribbean nations are in the more expensive half of the study results. Curaçao ranked as most expensive in the Caribbean with an average of $0.419 per kWh, while electricity per kWH in Puerto Rico averages $0.049.

The next-cheapest countries and territories are Trinidad and Tobago, Guadeloupe, Cayman Islands, St. Martin, St Barthélemy, the Caribbean Netherlands, Martinique, Aruba and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Global high, low

However, the VI still pays 32 times more than Libya, where consumers pay just $0.007 per kWh. But it doesn’t come close to the high prices in the Solomon Islands, a chain in the Pacific Ocean, which is the costliest in the world with an average price of $0.692 per kWh.

“The Caribbean consists of island nations where electricity generation tends to be more difficult,” the study’s authors wrote. “Clusters of more expensive countries in which to buy electricity tended to be in small island nations where electricity is harder to generate and/or there are no large-scale power stations.”

Researchers at Cable.co.uk worked for six months to complete an analysis of 3,883 energy tariffs around the world in order to measure the price of electricity in 230 countries.

The study noted that the most expensive countries on the list were all far-flung island nations. After the Solomon Islands, the five most expensive countries in terms of the average cost of one kWh were St. Helena ($0.612), Vanuatu ($0.591), the Cook Islands ($0.523) and Micronesia ($0.484).

‘Striking and obvious’

The study called the similarities between these five archipelagoes “both striking and obvious.” Four of five are in Oceania, and all five are island nations.

“Oceania is one of the most expensive regions in the world for electricity, while island nations also tend to be among the most expensive,” the study’s authors wrote.

After Libya, the five cheapest countries in terms of the average cost of one kWh were Angola ($0.013), Sudan ($0.014), Kyrgyzstan ($0.017), and Zimbabwe ($0.021).

“Conversely to the most expensive, none of these countries is an island, and three of the five are located in sub-Saharan Africa,” the study authors wrote. “The cheapest, Libya, is in Northern Africa, with the only non-African country being Kyrgyzstan.”

According to the study, the cheapest places in the world to buy electricity tend to be countries where either oil and gas prices are very cheap (i.e. countries which produce fossil fuels on a large scale), or where household electricity usage is very small and therefore tends not to require a lot of expensive infrastructure.

Around the world

The United States proved to be the cheapest country in North America, at $0.109 per kWh, followed by Canada ($0.124) and Greenland ($0.250). Oceania is the most expensive region in the world, averaging $0.303.

Meanwhile sub-Saharan Africa has four of the ten cheapest countries in the world and three of the ten most expensive.

Former Soviet countries are the cheapest on average regionally, with all 10 countries in the region in the top 70 cheapest in the world, three of them in the top 10.

The study pointed out that the UK, at $0.251 per kWh, pays the most for electricity in Western Europe and comes 190th in the world for cheap electricity.

“Almost every European nation is cheaper. Most African nations? Cheaper. There are even island nations where energy production is especially difficult that charge less than we are charged in the UK,” research analyst Dan Howdle said in a press release announcing the study results.

The post VI electricity costs near region’s average appeared first on The BVI Beacon.

Caribbean

Business

SVG not on verge of economic collapse – Finance Minister

admin — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 04:10:01 +0000

SVG not on verge of economic collapse – Finance Minister

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admin Sat, 12/11/2021 - 04:10

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

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Searchlight

Original Article

SVG not on verge of economic collapse – Finance Minister

Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves says a December 2 Bloomberg News Wire report falsely suggests that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says this country is on the brink of ‘economic collapse’.

“Nowhere in the IMF blog post cited by Bloomberg does IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva mention SVG. Not once; look it up,” Gonsalves commented to SEARCHLIGHT on Monday.

The comment was in reference to an article on BNN Bloomberg written by Ana Monteiro with the headline, “IMF Warns of Economic Collapse in Poor Nations Without Debt Fix.”

Part of the article says an IMF official commented that, “With the Group of 20’s debt-service suspension initiative expiring at the end of the year and interest rates poised to rise, low-income countries will find it increasingly difficult to service their debts.”

The article goes on to say, “We may see economic collapse in some countries unless G-20 creditors agree to accelerate debt restructurings and suspend debt service while the restructurings are being negotiated” and “Covid-19 has dealt a major blow to world’s poorest countries, causing a recession that could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty”, according to the World Bank. The challenges are mounting with the discovery of the omicron variant, which is driving a new wave of infections.

SVG is then listed as being “At Risk”.

But Gonsalves said the article cited a separate World Bank listing of selected countries that may be at risk of “debt distress” and falsely linked that to ‘economic collapse.’

“If a country is in debt distress, which SVG is not, it may mean that some debts could have to be restructured. Restructuring a debt is in no way connected to an economic collapse. Further, there are neighbouring islands that the World Bank has determined to be firmly in debt distress already and they haven’t done any restructuring, much less collapsed,” Gonsalves argued.

He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and the volcanic eruptions earlier this year have caused the economy of St. Vincent and Grenadines (SVG),to shrink which automatically increases the ratio of debt to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“We have also taken on more debt to deal with the humanitarian challenges of the volcano, albeit low interest, long term debt. Our construction of a modern port facility in Kingstown will also raise our debt profile in the short term,” Gonsalves further explained.

He added that the worsening debt to GDP profiles as a result of COVID-19 is not unique to SVG, as Debt to GDP worsened in every OECS member state over the last two years.

“In that regard, I fully agree with the IMF and Kristalina Georgieva that the developed world could and should do more to offer debt relief to vulnerable countries. In CARICOM, prime Ministers Mia Mottley and Gaston Browne have been leading this advocacy. COVID and climate change have caused economic challenges unrelated to our own internal fiscal management, and we would welcome any initiatives to reduce that burden,” the finance minister told SEARCHLIGHT.

He added, “but we are far, far away from anything resembling an economic collapse. SVG has always paid its debts and will continue to do so. We have not even seen it necessary to enter an IMF structural adjustment programme, one of the few in CARICOM to avoid that fate.”

The finance minister said the overwhelming bulk of the country’s debt is low interest, long term, concessionary debt from the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the European Union (EU), “and friends like Taiwan or Venezuela.”

“This debt is manageable,” he stressed whole noting that SVG welcomes the IMF’s call for debt relief to vulnerable countries and the government has been advocating that for a while.

“But there is absolutely no truth in the Bloomberg article’s misleading connection between Ms. Georgieva’s blog post and the assumption that we are on the brink of economic collapse. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
On December 2, an article on the IMFBlog written by Kristalina Georgieva and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu said that despite significant relief measures brought on by the COVID-19 crisis, about 60 percent of low-income countries are at high risk or already in debt distress.

“In 2015 that number was below 30 percent,” the article said.

Reports show that SVG is listed for high risk of external debt distress and overall debt distress. The listing appears in the latest publicly available Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) issued under the Joint Bank-Fund Debt Sustainability Framework for low income countries (LIC-DSF).

Grenada is also on that list but noted to already be in distress.

Minister Gonsalves further stated that having a risk of debt distress does not mean economic collapse.

Island nations also listed as having high risk of overall debt distress are Haiti, Kiribati, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.

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