Efforts to modernise Saint Lucia’s economic data collection are being advanced — but they are running up against two major obstacles: low response rates from businesses and a chronic shortage of technical personnel.
Despite support from international partners and a recent push to develop more sophisticated tools like producer price indexes (PPIs), the Central Statistical Office (CSO) – a designated a centre of excellence by the CARICOM Statistics Programme – is struggling to gather the quality and quantity of data needed to guide national decision-making in a country where policy missteps can be costly.
In a small island developing state like Saint Lucia, where resources are limited and the margins for policy errors are thin, reliable data isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity. But for years, concerns have lingered over the quality, timeliness and depth of the country’s economic statistics. Seemingly quietly, however, there is a push underway to modernise the way Saint Lucia collects, analyses, and reports its national data – with mixed results so far.
The Slippery Slope of Incomplete Data
Economic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation and unemployment rate are the backbone of national planning and private sector decision-making.
On May 2, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published the Report on Price Accounts Mission Developing and Updating PPIs (September 9–20, 2024), highlighting Saint Lucia’s track towards bolstering its data culture, particularly the process of incorporating increased use of PPIs.
Currently, Saint Lucia uses the consumer price index (CPI) to adjust its gross domestic product (GDP) for inflation. However, a PPI, which tracks the changes in prices that domestic producers receive for their output, is considered a more precise tool for this purpose.
CSO Director Sean Mathurin says “the two price indices should be used simultaneously to provide a more enhanced understanding or analysis of price movements”.
Recognising this flaw, the CSO has partnered with the IMF and its Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC) to develop PPIs for Saint Lucia, the first for sectors like manufacturing and construction.
“PPIs can serve as an indicator for future consumer price inflation,” says Mathurin. “Because what would happen is that if there are increases in the inputs that actually go into the production of a commodity, that increase would be transferred to the consumers.”
PPIs allow statisticians to more accurately deflate GDP, leading to a better reflection of real economic growth.
PPIs track the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output. Since 2017, Saint Lucia has had a functioning PPI for the accommodation and food services sector, which has proven valuable given the weight of tourism in the national economy. Expanding this tool to other sectors will significantly improve how the country measures and interprets its economic performance.
The development of reliable PPIs for key sectors like mining, manufacturing, utilities and construction and the updating of the existing PPI for accommodation and food services – the mission’s aim is expected to lead to more accurate estimates of the country’s economic growth.
Still, implementation is not without challenges.
A Persistent Struggle: Getting Businesses to Respond
One of the biggest hurdles facing the CSO is something many statistics offices worldwide deal with – low response rates from businesses. “The response rate for household surveys is normally higher than for business surveys,” Mathurin admits. “Businesses are concerned about the bottom line. So for them, it’s going to take time to provide information as opposed to alotting time and effort towards their business and maximizing it. They don’t see that as a priority.”
Business surveys routinely yield lower participation than household surveys, making it difficult for the CSO to generate reliable indicators such as production volumes, cost changes and profitability metrics. In some cases, staff must call, email, or visit businesses repeatedly just to get one completed form.
This problem compounds when trying to implement new tools like PPIs, which require consistent and detailed data submissions from companies across various sectors.
A Small Team with a Heavy Load
Underlying these issues is a familiar constraint: limited human resources.
Edwin St Catherine is a Caribbean Development Bank consultant statistician, IMF data expert and price statistics advisor, and a former director of the CSO. Before he left the CSO, he developed PPIs for the accommodation and food service sectors. “But we needed to do more,” he says. “For example road construction, engineering works, all of these sectors in particular require a PPI to be better, so you can better handle the measurement of the output of the construction sector.”
But a lack of tools and manpower stand in the way.
St Catherine says larger countries like the United States have a significant number of PPIs with the manpower to support this work. “The US, for example, has hundreds of PPIs,” he notes. “The US has a department that has almost 20 PhDs. You know what they’re doing? They are doing something called logistic regressions to estimate the price of certain types of manufactured goods based on their components [because] they have hundreds of PPIs. Small countries like Saint Lucia cannot do that.
“I mean they would need like two or three additional people and hire some additional staff to manage the producer price index survey. Because that’s hard to do, you have to call these manufacturers, have conversations with them; you must spec out their products.”
According to Mathurin, staffing issues remain a concern. “We’re seeing some attrition, and we have to plan for succession,” says Mathurin. He adds that support from the World Bank has recently enabled the CSO to develop a strategic business plan aimed at improving institutional structure, training and data output over the long term.
Can We Trust the Numbers?
For many, the key question remains: how trustworthy are the figures currently being published?
St Catherine highlights that with the current use of CPIs discrepancies are bound to happen. He says while deflating wholesale and retail sectors using consumer prices may be okay, “other [sectors like] construction, [it] doesn’t make any sense to use consumer prices to do those, there will be some amount of error in the GDP because of the imperfect use of a deflator.” He says it comes down to the inherent absence of tools, like PPIs. However, this will have to be addressed through additional manpower.
Still, Mathurin maintains that currently the CSO follows international best practices and engages closely with organisations such as the IMF and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
“All the categories of statistics that we’re involved in compiling and producing, we do so with international development partners and regional partners that are experts and are the ones that actually are leading in this area,” he said. “For instance, GDP, we work closely with the IMF and CARTAC, as it relates to our compilation production of GDP estimates. Even before we put out GDP estimates, we consult with them.”
Looking Forward: A More Autonomous Future
One promising development is a government-backed plan to transition the CSO into a semi-autonomous statistical bureau, granting it greater control over budgeting, staffing and operations. This model, already implemented in some other Caribbean nations, could enhance the CSO’s responsiveness and flexibility.
However, as Mathurin notes, the transition, given its complexity and the need for cultural and systemic shifts, may take over a decade to fully realise, as has been the case in other countries.
