Jamaica's Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, left the island to attend the annual World Bank /IMF meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.
Mr Shaw is expected to have further discussions with the IMF deputy managing director on Jamaica’s application to the Fund.
Jamaica is seeking to borrow $1.2 billion in a stand by arrangement from the IMF.
Recently a five member team headed by the Central Bank,r returned to the island after holding talks at the IMF in Washington D.C.
Many of you might recall that back in the late 70's and 80's, when Jamaica was borrowing every 5 minutes from the IMF and the poor people were getting poorer. People could not make a move without the IMF's approval. It was ruthless, draconian and created massive hardship. I heard that they are much kinder and gentler now; I hope to God it is true.
Source: GO JAMAICA
4 comments:
The reason why our politicians have had to borrow so much money is because they are yet to create policies that will make our people highly productive.
Jamaicafest, I couldn't agree more
I often listen to Perkins online Power 106 if you don't and its quite interesting how this is coming into play.
@Iriegal and Jamaicafes, Do you really believe that any country in the western hemisphere is pegged to be a productive nation? I suppose I should ask what is meant by production or productivity?
Even without the getting money from the IMF, CAFTA put a strangle on the Caribbean economy in general. Jamaica could create policies to make the country productive, but if you are not allowed to sell your products outside the country, what happens to the products?
In these economic times, production/productivity may not be the only solution. It seem that Jamaica will have to make policies that will strengthen the Jamaican dollar. Unfortuantely it trades less against the U.S. Greenback then many other Caribbean currencies. Once the policies are in place to strengthen the JA dollar, Jamaica will be a greater contender. As long as CAFTA has a strangle hold on the Caribbean in general production/productivity alone may not be the answer.
For instance tax breaks for business coming to do business in Jamaica. There is a filmmaker wanting to film a movie about Jamaica on Jamaica, using Jamaica as the back drop. You may know who I'm spaking of the filmaker and film's name illudes me right now. However, he came to JA to broker the deal, the and the government agreed on a tax price which also included employing local people during the filming. At the last minute the government decided to raise the tax on the filming at a much higher rate than originally agreed. With that the Jamaican filmaker had to pull out of the deal and consider filming in Trinidad or Puerto Rico since they were both offering a greater tax break thna the Jamaican government. Of course the filmaker was in dispair since he is Jamaican wanting to make a film about Jamaica, in Jamaica employing Jamaicans but was forced to leave and consider other islands. I beleive you would agree that Jamaica has different landscape, flora and fauna than many of the other islands in the Caribbean I don't see things like this as a matter of productivity alone.
Just some thoughts on the matter
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