Both Sides of The Coin: The Story of The Central Bank of Barbados 1972-2017

206 The Annual Report of 1973 was presented in a format which was to become the standard for the future. It was the first to feature a design on the cover - on that occasion the new Barbados currency notes. Since then there has been a different design every year, with each one depicting some aspect of Barbadian history, culture or economic development. The 1973 Report also contained the first economic analysis of the Barbadian economy under headings dealing with real sector activity, financial developments, the public sector, the balance of payments as well as regional and international economic developments. The narrative was enhanced by a set of tables and charts. In the financial survey, there was a sub-section on Central Bank Operations and Monetary Policy which explained, in some detail, the Bank’s monetary and credit policies during the year. In the Annual Report of 1974 this sub-section became a full section entitled Central Bank Policy and was moved to a more prominent position near the front of the document. The economic and financial analyses were complemented by reports on Operations, General Administration and a section on prospects for the coming year. Finally, came the Auditors’ Report and Financial Statements. The section entitled Central Bank Policy was discontinued from the Annual Report of 1987 and its contents included in the Overview and the sections on the Financial Sector and Operations. The 1984 Annual Report was the first to contain informative “boxes” in which important topics were singled out for special analysis; the first topic to be so treated was the Sugar Price Support Mechanism. The management of the Research Department recognised from early the importance of reliable statistics to a successful research programme. Accordingly, the first six months of that department’s existence were spent implementing and improving data collection systems. The monthly Economic and Financial Statistics , a collection of data series with a bright orange cover, was first issued in November 1973. During 1974 and 1975, the format of this publication was revised and additional series were included after visits from, and consultations with, experts in the compilation of banking and public finance statistics from the IMF's Bureau of Statistics. These improvements enabled the IMF to include statistical data on Barbados in its International Financial Statistics publication from June 1975.