Curaçao and Sint Maarten islands should consider formal dollarisation to reduce their balance-of-payments vulnerability, said Emsley Tromp, the president of the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles.

Tromp said having the dollar as legal tender removed the possibility of a balance-of-payments crisis with the risk of devaluation. He said an economic downturn or reversal of capital flows would not turn into a currency crisis. He said an immediate benefit from the elimination of currency crises would be