PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo, who is the current Chairman of CARICOM, has said middle income countries need a new model of development to create a viable medium and long term strategy.

He said so Monday during a press conference at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, following his return the day before from the 2009 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Turkey.

The Head of State reported that he also conducted several sessions with the leadership of the multilateral financing institutions (MFIs), discussing regional matters and the financing of Guyana’s proposed Amaila Falls hydropower project.

Asked if he secured any World Bank commitment on debt relief for CARICOM, he replied that he had a very good meeting with the President of that institution and said, to him, that it was one of the better meetings he has had.

Mr. Jagdeo said the World Bank official was “very clear and frank” about what needs to be done and several suggestions were made on which they will continue working.

He said the World Bank has a lot of data on debt and not just public but also private debt.

According to him, at a meeting in Jamaica a few months ago, the deficiency of the document that was considered dealt largely with debt to multilateral and public agencies but not to the Private Sector and a significant number of countries have debt profiles where the bulk of the debt is to the Private Sector.

“Now the solution has to be crafted based on the debt profile of each country because no use you ask for multilateral debt relief for all countries across the board,” President Jagdeo offered.

He pointed out that some countries only have a small multilateral debt and said, for example, if their debt is to the domestic Private Sector or the local banking system and a debt write-off takes place, it may affect the viability of the local financial institutions.

“So you have to pursue a different solution. In some countries, say, Antigua and Barbuda, a lot of their debts are to the Pension Fund. So, if you get a debt write-off from the pension funds, you affect workers pension. So you have to find a different solution for each country,” President Jagdeo explained.

He added: “But, clearly, if these countries were to qualify for multilateral debt relief based on a classification that I have argued for, that middle income countries need a new model of development that looks at small, vulnerable middle income countries that are different than larger developing middle income countries, unless you tackle the model of development, first of all, you wouldn’t be able to create a viable medium and long term developmental strategy for these countries so debt relief has to be situated there.”

President Jagdeo said the World Bank President agreed and the parties will be working together on that issue, the ‘greylisting’ or ‘blacklisting’ of some CARICOM jurisdictions.

On trying to increase access of some of the countries to multilateral funding, he disclosed that there will be a follow-up meeting, sometime early next year, to see how far the issue has been advanced.

President Jagdeo declared that was “healthy” because, normally, “you don’t get a commitment and a follow-up meeting to see progress on those commitments.”