Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons yesterday said it was unnecessary for a foreign expert to tell Bermuda that hard economic times are on the horizon and he called on Government to lay out plans on how it will be tackled.

Government's consultant economic advisor Dr. Andrew Brimmer, who is American, was the guest speaker at the Bermuda International Business Association's Annual General Meeting on Thursday. He told members at the luncheon that if the recession continues in the US, Bermuda is certain to feel the effect and that the hardest hit will be the poor. Painting a grim picture, he said unemployment would rise and tourism would suffer further decline. He also predicted that the gross domestic product would fall by 1.5 percent in 2002.

But in the House of Assembly yesterday Dr. Gibbons said that these results could have been easily reached by Ministry of Finance staff .

"I don't think it's anything the Ministry of Finance staff or the economic advisor already in-house could not have done themselves," he said.

"Together with the statistics department and keeping abreast of what is going on in the US they would have reached the same conclusion. There were no surprises."

And Dr. Gibbons said the overall gloomy economic picture painted by Dr. Brimmer was clear to most people in Bermuda even before the September 11 attacks.

"Anybody, especially those in the hospitality industry in Bermuda, would have already recognised that things would probably get worse," he said.

"We saw that the economy was deteriorating from the beginning of the year. Way before September 11 we knew our tourism numbers were down, that visitor spending was way down on the previous year and that the hospitality sector was in recession."

He said that what Government needs to do is explain the measures it will take to address the problem.

"What we would like to hear now is what they intend to do in terms of support. How they intend to reduce the burden through tax for both businesses and individuals and we would call for cut backs on expenditure. We'd like to be clear on how Government intends to trim their own budget," he said.

And Dr. Gibbons rehashed the Opposition's contention that the $74 million increase in Government spending was " imprudent and irresponsible considering the US economy was facing recession".

Asked if he thought Dr. Brimmer should have held back on his speech so as not to cause a negative impact in this Christmas shopping season Dr. Gibbons said : "What we expect from Government is a straight story. We could have got this (the information in Dr. Brimmer's speech) two months ago."