Local economist advises Nevis Credit Union to tackle the problems that confront its members

Thursday, January 1, 2004

CHARLESTOWN, Nevis: Local Economist, Mr. Peter Adrien has said that if the Nevis Cooperative Credit Union (NCCU) was to remain an institution for change, it needed to grab and hold the problems that confront the Nevisian people.

Speaking at the ceremony on Tuesday 30, to commission the renovated and expanded business complex of the Nevis Cooperative Credit Union on Chapel Street, Charlestown, the economist, expressed his views on what the role of the Nevis Credit Union in the Nevisian economy should be.

He said, "The credit union must tackle the social and economic problems that confront the Nevisian people if it is to remain an institution for change." He also said that the credit union management was now challenged to take the transformation process to a higher ground.

Advisor to the Strategic Planning and Policy Department of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, St. Kitts, Mr. Adrien noted that he had identified two areas of priority that the union needed to embark upon. These were employment creation and investment financing.

He told the gathering that included, members of the Nevis Island Assembly, a cross section of members from financial institution and members of the union, that to create employment that was constrained by fiscal pressures and high cost of finance, governments in the Caribbean can neither be employers of last resort, nor major financier of economic activity.

"The management of the Nevis Credit Union has an obligation to the membership to identify the investment possibilities and the potential investors within the field of membership and using proper methodologies and technologies to transform these members from being mass savers to entrepreneurs," he commented.

Not only did the economist tell the Nevis Credit Union management to use its field of expertise in transforming poor people, to people of wealth, he also called upon all credit unions to learn how to finance micro and small enterprises and expressed that the credit unions must seek to develop the in house capacity to do that.

He advised that they must not simply be willing to provide that product, but they must be able to provide the product because of what they had mastered in technology of being able to understand with respect, the underwriting, pricing and risk profiling.

  Back...

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version