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

iv It gives me great pleasure to recommend this excellent history of the first 45 years of operation of the Central Bank of Barbados. Few people are better placed than Harold Codrington, its author, to provide an insight into the Bank’s role as a nation building institution. Mr. Codrington worked at the Bank for 37 of those 45 years and while his history might fall short of being a tell-all, it certainly provides an important understanding of the work of the Bank and its contribution to the economic development of Barbados. It is also important because it chronicles the economic maturing of a young country that was striking out on its own. The Bank was founded only six years after Independence when there was still some latent uncertainty as to whether such a small country with no natural resources should have cut the umbilical cord with what was then referred to as the Mother Country. There was also the contending view that Barbados should continue to support and strengthen the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority. Thankfully as Mr. Codrington points out, by mid- March 1972 all sides in both Houses of Parliament unanimously passed the Central Bank of Barbados Bill and the rest, as they say, is history. MESSAGE BY HON. MIA AMOR MOTTLEY, Q.C., M.P., Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment