"People meet me all the time, 'I hear you gone to the IMF', as though I gone to hell," complained St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.

Within the past few months, five member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) have sought low-interest funding from the IMF to help meet revenue or other shortfalls.

St Vincent, Dominica and St Lucia requested financing under the IMF's Exogenous Shocks Facility; Grenada has requested continuation of a poverty reduction scheme; and St Kitts and Nevis received funds under the Emergency Assistance for Natural Disasters Facility.

The sums involved are not huge - US$5.1 million was approved for Dominica on Monday - but Caribbean governments historically get nervous with any mention of IMF financing.

The last year or so has proved very difficult for OECS nations, as it has for many countries around the world.

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank says that, taken as a whole, the sub-region experienced an economic slowdown in 2008 to 2.2 percent from 5.7 percent in the previous year.

Job levels fall

That trend has intensified in the first quarter of this year, which has seen a 3.9 percent drop in gross domestic product over the comparative period a year ago.

Tourism, construction, manufacturing and retailing have all suffered.

"In addition, inflows of foreign direct investment and remittances were estimated to have contracted, business confidence fell and unemployment levels increased," OECS finance ministers said in a 9 July communique.

It is against that background that the countries in the sub-region have sought IMF financing.

The popular vehicle is the Exogenous Shock Facility.

According to the IMF, "an exogenous shock is an event that has a significant negative impact on the economy and that is beyond the control of the government."

	Dr Gonsalves has been critical of media reporting of the IMF loans

As Caribbean countries are fond of saying, this current economic crisis did not start in their area.

Key features of the shock facility include rapid access to funds and low interest payments - loans carry an annual rate of 0.5 percent.

The IMF itself says the sub-region is "particularly exposed to current account shocks given their reliance on tourism as the main source of foreign exchange, and their vulnerability to natural disasters."

Kindler, gentler

Dr Gonsalves, who is also St Vincent's Minister of Finance, insisted that such a scenario is ample justification for seeking the help of an institution of which the country was a member.

There was "nothing intrinsically wrong" about negotiating with the IMF about "a crisis which has hit you very hard".

"It depends on the nature of the arrangement which you negotiate," he said.

The exogenous facility is one of a number of reforms meant to give the IMF a kinder, gentler face after criticism that its lending conditions were too onerous, particularly for small or poor nations.

"The good thing about it is that it is soft money, there are no conditionalities," said the Prime Minister of St Lucia, Stephenson King.

	Wall Street excesses have been blamed for the financial and economic crisis

He said: "It is a facility to assist member countries in moving over in this difficult time. At this time in the region ... it is about survival. This is not a structural adjustment programme."

The prospects, in the short-term, remain gloomy for the OECS sub-region and they'll hope that they will survive without having to take stiffer medicine from the IMF.

Stimulus

The Central Bank itself expects the decline in GDP to continue during 2010.

To compound the difficulties, national debt ratios in the OECS countries are among the highest in the world, according to the IMF.

This has constrained the sub-grouping from providing any far-reaching stimulus packages during the economic crisis.

Public debt averaged about 100 percent of GDP (total output of goods and services) at the end-December 2008 and is set to increase during the current economic downturn.

The stated aim is to bring that down to 60 percent by 2020 but countries are more concerned now about riding out the downturn.

"One can summarise by simply stating the fact, these are difficult and challenging times," bank governor Sir Dwight Venner said.