• At least nine health departments across the island have begun house to house vaccination. Healthcare teams, including public health nurses and community health aides from Hanover, Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Trelawny, Westmoreland, St. Ann, St. Mary, Portland and St. Thomas have been deployed to communities across the island to administer the COVID-19 vaccines to shut-ins, disabled and the elderly. 
• According to Health & Wellness Minister, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, “This house to house vaccination programme is intended to take vaccines to communities that are not close to a fixed site and to persons who are not able to travel to these sites.” 
• This represents another phase in the national vaccination efforts and is in keeping with the principles of the programme, which includes national equity – developing appropriate deployment strategy and distribution infrastructure to ensure access to priority population. 
• The government is hoping to vaccinate 40% of the population by Christmas and to date only 12% of the population is fully vaccinated. Therefore, the house to house vaccination will help to increase vaccination numbers, as well as put the government closer to its target. Higher inoculation rates will put the country in a stronger position to relax containment measures.

(Source: JIS News & NCBCM Research)

• Barbados’ unemployment rate seems to be on a downward trajectory, and is estimated to have been 15.9% at the end of June this year. This was 1.3 percentage points less than the rate of 17.2% recorded for the 1st quarter of 2021. This decline was supported by a 3.9 percentage points increase in the labour force participation rate to 62.6%. 
• The Continuous Household Labour Force Survey released by the Barbados Statistical Service (BSS), showed that between April and June this year the unemployment rate for males contracted to 14.1%, while for females, the unemployment rate rose slightly to 17.8%. 
• Further dissection of the labour force survey showed that the wholesale and retail trade industry accounted for the majority of employment with some 15,400 persons. This was followed by public administration and defence at 12,500 persons; accommodation and food services (11,400); construction, mining and quarrying industry (9,700); manufacturing (7,700); and education (7,400). 
• Fitch Solutions forecasts that the sovereign’s unemployment rate will fall further this year to 12.3% by end 2021 from 21% in 2020. Tourism activity has been sluggish but a rise in arrivals is expected in Q4 2021, which should support higher demand for labour to meet the increase in the demand for the island’s tourism product.

(Source: Barbados Today & NCBCM Research)

• In a speech on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Central Bank, Governor Héctor Valdez Albizu revealed that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) reached a growth of 12.7% in the first nine months of this year and projected that at the end of this 2021 it would be double digits (10%) or more. 
• Valdez Albizu cited the Hotels, Bars and Restaurants sector as the great driver of growth from January to September, with 31.8%; followed by construction with 30%, free zones 24%, among other activities that in turn contributed to an increase in formal and informal employment. 
• However, he stressed that as in previous months, construction was once again the activity with the highest impact on growth, representing almost 80% of gross fixed capital formation. 
• “The remarkable performance of the first nine months of the year consolidates the projection that the Dominican Republic will achieve a double-digit expansion at the end of 2021, that is, 10% or more, placing the country again as one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America,” the governor said in his speech.

(Source: Dominican Today)

• Fitch Solutions, expects the Bank of Canada (BoC) will leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged, at 0.25%, through end-2021 but hike by 25 basis points (bps), to 0.50%, in 2022, an upward revision from their previous forecast of 0.25%. 
• Persistent inflationary pressures and higher inflation expectations amid an economic recovery underpin the hawkish view for the BoC, particularly as many other central banks have begun to raise interest rates in H221. 
• Elevated commodity prices and global supply shortages underpin Fitch’s 3.8% inflation forecast for 2021. However, it is expected that price growth will decelerate throughout 2022 and end the year at 2.3%.

(Source: Fitch Solutions)

• Global equity markets rose on Monday, while U.S. Treasury yields dipped as investors were buoyed by a better-than-expected U.S. corporate earnings season that kicked into gear this week. 
• A large proportion of S&P 500 companies are due to report results, including technology heavyweights Facebook, Apple Inc, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet that have been the drivers of the market rally this year. 
• "The number one thing is that earnings are better than expected and what's more interesting is that as we approach the end of the year, we're going to see forward guidance being lifted, which would make the market multiple more reasonable," said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital in New York. 
• The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 50 countries, was up 0.29%, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index gained 0.07%.

(Source: Reuters)

• According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica’s (STATIN) Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate for July 2021 was 8.5%. This is 4.1 percentage points lower than the 12.6% out-turn for the same period last year. 
• The survey shows that the number of unemployed persons went down by 49,200 or 30.4% to 112,500. The number of unemployed males fell by 43.4%, while the number of unemployed females declined by 17.5%. The unemployment rate for youth, aged 14 to 24, was 23.9%, 6.4 percentage points lower than the July 2020 out-turn of 30.3%. 
• Meanwhile, the ‘Construction’ and “Real Estate and Other Business Services’ industry groups accounted for more than 50.0% of the increase in the employed labour force. Some 118,300 persons were employed in the construction industry, representing an increase of 26,100 or 28.3%, with males accounting for 25,900 of this figure. In the real estate and other business services industry, there were 115,100 persons employed, an increase of 23.0%(21,500). Females accounted for the largest increase – 11,900 or 25.4%. 
• Other industry groups recording notable increases were ‘Accommodation and Food Service Activities’ – up 17,800 persons; ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing’ – up 6,200 persons; and ‘Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles’ – up 5,500 persons.

(Source: JIS News)

• According to Fitch Solutions, the JLP’s large majority has facilitated policymaking in recent quarters, including the smooth passage of a supplementary budget on October 12 that boosted emergency spending on the COVID-19 pandemic by JMD33.0Bn, equivalent to 5.6% of current expenditures in FY2020/21. The supplementary budget included cash transfers to those unemployed due to the pandemic and to incentivize vaccinations, food support and a bonus for healthcare workers. 
• While the supplementary budget will increase spending in FY2021/22 by 4.0%, Fitch maintains its view that the government will pursue fiscal consolidation in the medium term for three reasons. Notably, it expects the public debt will rise to 108.6% of GDP by end-2021 and that with limited access to international capital markets, the government will have to curtail spending. Despite austerity being politically unpopular, Fitch sees the government initiating fiscal consolidation in the medium term for two reasons. Firstly, throughout Jamaica’s two IMF programmes from 2013 to 2019, there was cross-party buy-in for reducing government spending and public debt. Secondly, elections are not constitutionally mandated until September 2025, giving the government several years to rein in spending before it faces voters. 
• That said, Fitch is revising down Jamaica’s score in its Short-Term Political Risk Index (STPRI) to 72.3 out of 100, from 74.2 previously, as a slow vaccination programme, and elevated inflation, unemployment and crime are raising risks to social stability. With only 19.2% of Jamaicans having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of October 19, Jamaica’s vaccination programme significantly lags other major Caribbean markets due to a limited supply and persistent vaccine hesitancy. 
• In addition, Fitch sees rising risks to social stability amid elevated inflation, unemployment, and violent crime pose. Inflation reached 6.1% in August, above the upper bound of the Bank of Jamaica’s 4.0-6.0% inflation target. Fitch forecasts that inflation will remain high in the quarters ahead, averaging 6.0% in 2022, the high end of the BOJ’s target range. At the same time, unemployment averaged 9.0% in Q221, above the 7.3% seen before the pandemic in Q120. The combination of elevated unemployment and erosion of household purchasing power increases the possibility of widespread protests against economic conditions.

(Source: Fitch Solutions)

• The government of Barbados is pouring cold water on the notion that there have been mass cancellations heading into the winter tourism season. In fact, Minister of Tourism Senator Lisa Cummins said based on reports she has received, bookings have placed the majority of hotels above 70 per cent capacity. 
• This is contrary to the cries of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), which earlier reported there were several cancellations. 
• Cummins was responding to a question from the DAILY NATION following the pomp and ceremony to herald the inaugural service of Irish airline Aer Lingus from Manchester, England, to Bridgetown at Grantley Adams International Airport yesterday. 
• She said since the announcement in June that Barbados was on the United Kingdom’s (UK) green list, forward bookings went up fourfold and there had been no abatement to this trend.

(Source: NationNews Barbados)

• Central Government fiscal results through September 2021 show a primary surplus of 0.3% of GDP and an overall deficit of 3.9% of GDP. 
• The primary surplus achievement is said to indicate the fiscal adjustment is on the right track and is a clear sign of the government’s commitment to fiscal sustainability according to Finance Minister Elian Villegas. 
• Minister Villegas also stressed that such commitment must be complemented by the progress of the IMF legislative agenda. This week the Legislative Assembly’s Economic commission endorsed the Customs Reform bill, one of the eight legislative initiatives that make up the IMF legislative agenda. 
• It is only the second bill of the IMF agenda to advance to the general Legislative Assembly floor, following the Public Employment. The bill intends to combat smuggling and tax fraud.

(Source: Oppenheimer)

• From port congestion and price spikes to widespread shortages, the stress in US supply chains is intensifying and could slow the economy in the coming months, Moody's Analytics warns. 
• To measure the logistical strains impacting the economy, Moody's recently created a US supply chain stress index that is made up of various metrics for production, inventory and transportation. 
• That index climbed to 135.9 in August, compared with pre-pandemic levels of about 100. Moody's said early signs point to another increase in the supply chain stress index for September, driven by further price increases. 
• The logistics nightmare is posing a real obstacle to the economic recovery from COVID-19. Hurt by a shortage of materials and workers, US industrial production unexpectedly fell in September, according to the Federal Reserve. Industrial production measures everything from manufacturing and mining to electric and gas utilities

(Source: CNN Business)