Jamaica Continues to Perform Well Under Economic Reform Programme

Co-chair of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), Richard Byles, says that Jamaica’s economy continues to perform “pretty well” under the Economic Reform Programme.

Addressing a monthly press briefing of EPOC on September 8, Mr. Byles presented figures for July and August, which showed continuous improvements in the Net International Reserves (NIR) and the cumulative primary surplus.

For the period April to July the country’s cumulative primary surplus stood at $25.4 billion, which was 16.5 per cent better than the $21.8 billion projected in the budget. Meanwhile, at the end of August, data showed that the NIR, at US$2. 1 billion, surpasses the International Monetary Fund (IMF) target of US$1.1 billion.

“So, on the two critical performance indicators of the primary balance and the NIR, the country has done pretty well in July and August,’ Mr. Byles said.

In the meantime, there was a shortfall of $2.6 billion in revenues and grants for the period. Tax revenues for April to July were $111.6 billion, which is $0.6 billion less than expected. There was a $2.4 billion shortfall in grants for the review period.

However, the EPOC co-chair said that efforts are being made to narrow this shortfall. “I think the problem is that there is a difference of timing between when they are budgeted to come in …and all the activity to support the grants being executed,” Mr. Byles said.

He noted that the Government continues to be prudent with expenditure, and spent $7.7 billion less than budgeted for which compensated for the shortfall in revenues and grants. This resulted in a fiscal deficit of $17.9 billion, which is better than the budgeted deficit of $23.1 billion.

The EPOC was set up to monitor Jamaica’s Extended Fund Facility with the IMF.

An IMF team visited the island from August 13-22 to conduct the fifth quarterly review of the Extended Fund Facility, which is expected to be considered by the board of the multilateral agency in mid-September.