Against a backdrop of stubbornly elevated travel costs that continue to drag on economic development across the Eastern Caribbean, the Monetary Council of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has formally pledged its full support for ongoing initiatives to launch OECS Air, a dedicated regional airline. This endorsement was delivered in an official communiqué released at the conclusion of the Council’s 113th quarterly gathering, hosted this week in Dominica, where regional finance ministers and territorial premiers gathered to assess the bloc’s current economic trajectory and align on core growth priorities. During deliberations, Council members acknowledged that the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union’s (ECCU) tourism sector has retained surprising resilience in recent months, but highlighted that fragmented and inadequate air links between neighboring islands remain a persistent bottleneck that limits the expansion of intraregional travel. The official statement emphasized that the body welcomes ongoing multi-stakeholder discussions focused on bringing OECS Air to operational status, noting that enhanced regional connectivity is a non-negotiable foundation for unlocking growth in cross-border trade, tourism, and the free movement of labor across the bloc. The Monetary Council went further to frame improved interconnectedness as an indispensable pillar for maintaining long-term economic expansion and boosting the Eastern Caribbean’s global competitiveness. It reaffirmed its long-standing position that delivering widespread, shared prosperity to member states requires coordinated progress across multiple critical fronts: raising overall productivity, deepening institutional regional integration, expanding affordable transportation infrastructure, rolling out accessible, low-cost energy, attracting higher levels of private sector investment, and sustaining consistent macroeconomic policy coordination across all member governments. In a positive update on the region’s core tourism industry, the Council confirmed that visitor arrivals across the ECCU saw a robust 9% uptick in the first quarter of 2026, climbing from 2.3 million to 2.5 million compared to the prior comparable period. Correspondingly, total visitor spending across the bloc also grew by 4%, rising from 2.7 billion Eastern Caribbean dollars to 2.8 billion Eastern Caribbean dollars. The uptick in both arrival numbers and spending signals that global traveler demand for the Eastern Caribbean as a leading leisure and vacation destination remains steady, countering broader headwinds facing the global travel sector.