PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) - Grenada may need as much as $2.2 billion, or four times its annual economic output, to rebuild after Hurricane Ivan slammed the tiny Caribbean island two weeks ago, an official said on Tuesday.
By Linda Hutchinson-JafarAll that money would have to come from abroad as the island's main industries -- nutmeg and tourism -- were devastated, said Patrick Antoine, Grenada's ambassador to the World Trade Organization.
The storm, which went on to hammer Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and the U.S. Gulf Coast, killed 39 people in Grenada and left 40,000 of its 90,000 people living in 183 houses, schools and churches that have been converted into shelters. Ninety percent of buildings on the island were wrecked.
"We've had many (reconstruction figures). They've ranged from EC (East Caribbean) $1.5 billion ($500 million) to as high as EC$6 billion ($2.2 billion)," Antoine told reporters in nearby Trinidad.
"We're going to have a donor-pledging conference sometime next month to bring our proposals forward to the international community," he said.
The European Union on Tuesday earmarked 3 million euros ($3.6 million) in immediate emergency aid for victims of Ivan in Grenada and of Tropical Storm Jeanne in Haiti, where more than 600 people died last weekend in floods and mudslides.
The Caribbean Community, a regional bloc of 15 mainly English-speaking countries, has called for a debt moratorium to help Grenada recover and economists say the country may not be able to post any economic growth for up to 15 years. Its gross domestic product amounts to about $450 million.
Natural disasters usually have significant impacts on the small and vulnerable economies of the Caribbean. Hurricane Gilbert wiped out 65 percent of Jamaica's GDP in 1988, Trudy Teelucksingh-Ablack, manager of research and market intelligence at Trinidad-based RBTT Merchant Bank, told a seminar in Miami on Tuesday.
Mark Singh, RBTT's managing director, told Reuters the bank's credit portfolio on Grenada had suffered and the level of nonperforming loans there would clearly soar.
Rating agency Standard & Poor's has lowered its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings for Grenada to "B-plus" from "BB-minus" and said economic growth would be severely hindered. (Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Miami)
