Finance Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo says that the country needs to find innovative and creative ways to unlock the many potential that lie throughout the Provinces.
Speaking to the media late yesterday afternoon Mr Lilo says that the main barrier to realizing our full potential is the geographical make up of the country.Mr Lilo says there are costs that the country cannot avoid due to its geographical make up.
"The best way to address this is to invest in infrastructure development in order to encourage a broad based economic development in the provinces," said Mr Lilo.
Mr Lilo says the country needs a more integrated approach "such as an improvement in transportation and communication to ensure the bulk of the country's population in the rural areas could also be economically active."
"We have to come up with innovative and creative ways to address this inherent problem, an example could be in banking, in this modern world for instance offering financial services to the rural areas can be done electronically."
The Finance Minister adds that infrastructure development should be a long term plan of all successive governments because without the improvement in infrastructure development, the country cannot talk about broad based development.