Outlook for 2016-17

• The government of the prime minister, Bernard Whiteman, will serve out its term, but no significant policy initiatives are expected to advance before the September 2016 election, and political stability will remain fragile.
• Progress on fiscal consolidation and tackling corruption will be hampered by the government's slim majority. Tougher counter-narcotics action in Central America poses a risk to Curaçao's security from diverted drug flows.
• The Kingdom Council of the Netherlands will continue to provide fiscal supervision to Curaçao, and help it to maintain a balanced budget. A high public debt/GDP ratio of over 40% adds an element of fiscal risk.
• After years of recession, the economy will post positive growth in 2016-17, but the expansion will be weak, at just 0.5% on average, hindered by retrenchment in public spending and weak consumer demand.
• A fragile economic recovery and deflationary pressures emanating from lower average oil prices will keep inflation at bay in 2016-17, when it will average 1.9%.
• The current-account deficit will continue to narrow. Recovering tourism demand abroad will push up services receipts, while the merchandise trade deficit will narrow owing to cheaper oil imports.

Review

• The former prime minister and leader of the Movementu Futuro Kòrsou, Gerrit Schotte, was found guilty of bribery and sentenced to a three-year jail term. He is also banned from holding public office for five years.
• Although official data have yet to be published, a recently released IMF Article IV report show that the economy expanded by 0.1% in 2015-a tepid rise, but one that signals the end of six years of recession.
• The government has announced that it will not renew the lease (which ends in 2019) to the embattled Venezuelan state-owned oil firm, Petróleos de Venezuela, of its Isla oil refinery, leaving the future of this entity in doubt.
• Consumer prices registered deflation of 1.1% at end-2015 (the latest available figure) and fell by an annual average rate of 0.5%.
• The current account narrowed in the final quarter of 2015, reaching 14.3% of GDP for the year as a whole, a mild deterioration compared with 2014.