WILLEMSTAD, THE HAGUE - About 60 million guilders in liquidity support flowed back to the Netherlands in 2021. The Curaçao government writes this in response to the evaluation report of the liquidity loans.
The money was used to pay interest on previous loans. According to the Pisas cabinet, these interest payments could have been much lower if the Netherlands had offered the option of refinancing in 2020. As a result, Curaçao's debt position has become unnecessarily high, according to the Curaçao government.
The report was sent to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament yesterday. In this report, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) evaluates the effects of the corona loans provided to the CAS countries (Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten) in 2020 and 2021. State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen refutes the criticism from Curaçao. The interest-free loans have made an important contribution to dampening the crisis. Economic growth in 2021 is also likely to have exceeded expectations by the IMF, the state secretary said.