Bahamas’ Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham painted an optimistic outlook for his country’s economy, saying that it was “better than might have been expected several months ago and a glimpse of clearing skies is gradually emerging on the horizon.”

In his mid-year budget statement to Parliament on Wednesday, Ingraham said: “We are committed to capitalizing on the better days ahead to rebuild the fiscal headroom that we have used since the global maelstrom hit our shores.”

Ingraham said that the data for the first six months of the 2009-2010 fiscal year showed that actual recurrent expenditure totaled $742.8 million, nearly $10 million more than had been forecast. He also told legislators that total revenue collections for the July to December 2009 period amounted to $634.9 million, an increase of eight million dollars on last year’s position.

The Prime Minister said that when the global crisis hit the Bahamas, his administration had implemented measures in order to be able to deal with any worsening of the economic conditions and, to the extent possible, maintain employment and living standards.

Ingraham said that his administration would maintain the short-term stimulus “that we are providing to the economy and …as global and domestic conditions recover we will frame fiscal policies so as to arrest the rise in the public debt burden and reverse its course back to more acceptable and prudent levels.”

But Ingraham warned that this would require the government to maintain “strong discipline over recurrent expenditure as well as having an ongoing determination to properly collect all revenues rightfully due to government.” He also said that the tentative pace of the recovery, combined with an observed shift in U.S. consumption patterns towards increased savings, would continue to constrain the return to positive growth momentum for the Bahamian economy in the short-term.

The Prime Minister, however, also said that annual positive growth would return in 2011. And while further details will be presented at the time of the presentation of the 2010-11 budget, his administration would still be making adjustments to recurrent and capital expenditures but,” importantly, we are committed to remain within the total expenditure limits already approved by Parliament for expenditure in fiscal 2009/10…”.