The Finance Minister's upbeat description of Bermuda's economy was decried as overly rosy by the Opposition on Friday.

Both Shadow Tourism Minister Mr. David Allen and Shadow Finance Minister Mr.

Eugene Cox took Finance Minister the Hon. David Saul to task for a statement he made in the House earlier in the day.

Noting improvements in visitor arrivals, visitor spending, length of stay, international business, gross domestic product, numbers of jobs, and inflation, Dr. Saul said the economy was in "a most encouraging recovery''.

Mr. Allen said he had "real concern over the picture that (Dr. Saul) has been painting''.

He recognised it was part of the Finance Minister's job to restore confidence in the economy, and he did not dispute the facts Dr. Saul quoted.

But the Minister was "very selective about the data he compares'', and "he doesn't give the full picture'', Mr. Allen said. And he "lulls the Country into a sense of complacency''.

While there had been "a modest corner rounded'' in tourism, Bermuda had a long way to go, he said. Air arrivals, the bread and butter of the industry, were still 14.5 percent behind 1980, he said.

And Bermuda's high spending yield per visitor in large part reflected how expensive the Island was, relative to other destinations.

Mr. Allen charged that there was a "split personality'' to Dr. Saul's approach in his economic statements. "On the one hand he's trying to say that things are looking great. On the other hand he's telling workers you can't ask for too much because the hotels are losing money. "You can't have it both ways.'' But Dr. Saul noted that his statement called for restraint not only in wages, but in prices and profit margins. It was "fair across the board'', he said.

And he insisted the glass was half full, not half empty. This year "will be the third or fourth best year for tourism in the last 14 years'', he said.

Mr. Cox said Dr. Saul was "misleading the House'', and perhaps the Country when he compared 1994 economic indicators to those in 1990.

"Perhaps we should go back to 1980 when we had good results,'' Mr. Cox said.

In 1990, "we had poor results to begin with''.

He did compliment Dr. Saul for using "more realistic'' yardsticks for the economy than in the past. For example, he felt per capita visitor spending figures cited by Dr. Saul were more useful than figures used in the past, like total hotel bed nights sold.