Both the government and the opposition of Grenada have arrived at a consensus on a 4 point plan in an an effort to help the country's economy recover from the devastation wrought by hurricanes Ivan and Emily. A number of Grenada's leading commercial banks including National Commercial Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Grenada Cooperative Bank and FirstCaribbean International Bank will provide an EC$40 million aggregate loan to assist the government with its current and development needs. An overdraft facility will also be combined with this loan, which will serve the same purpose. Additional loans from other entities will also be provided. These financial institutions will provide favourable terms to the government to assist it in its efforts to rehabilitate the country and meet its financial obligations to both internal and external creditors. Therefore, instead of incorporating the overdraft in the overall debt restructuring pool, the government decided to treat the commercial banks separately, explained Grenada's finance minister Anthony Boatswain. "The existing overdraft facility that was used for the purposes of assisting government with its recurrent and development needs will now be termed out over a period of 12 years, so the facility that was existing is now converted into a term loan," said Minister Boatswain. This overdraft comes with what many consider reasonable interest rates of 9.5 - 10.5 per cent which can be converted into a loan with a moratorium of three years. This means that the government will pay 5.75 per cent on that loan. The opposition shadow finance minister Nazim said that the opposition will make every effort to support the bill which will lend validity to these loan offers. Minister Boatswain said as a result of this loan agreement with the commercial banks the government will save money on interest and servicing of its overdraft and debt. In September of this year, Caribbean Business Report carried a story on how Grenada as a result of difficulties faced meeting its debt obligations would have to undergo exchanging new US$ and EC bonds for a major part of both external and domestic bonds and commercial loans. This exchange also included guranteed debt. All US$-denominated claims were offered new bonds denominated in US$ and all EC$-denominated claims were offered new bonds denominated in EC$. The new bonds offered by Grenada will mature in 2025. Reprinted from jamaicaobserver.com