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The Competitiveness Company today (December 22), signed a US$150,000 agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to support and improve the competitiveness and profitability of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). This initiative, which is being financed through the IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), will seek to accomplish this objective through the effective management and promotion of the intellectual property...

President of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ), Joseph M. Matalon, has explained that the organization is not in favour of the one percent increase in the General Consumption Tax (GCT) rate announced in Parliament last Thursday. 'We believe that the Government may find that there are diminishing returns in terms of the revenue performance from increases in the...

President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), Joseph M. Matalon, sees the Government's latest tax package as "necessary", in light of the impact of the global economic crisis on Jamaica. In an interview with JIS News Friday (December), Mr. Matalon, while describing the tax package as "very significant" and "perhaps one of the largest in the history of...

Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, says the length of time that the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has taken, has nothing to do with the competence of the negotiating team. "The fact is that the negotiating team is largely the same team that has been interacting with the IMF over many years," he said, while addressing a...

The Government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have brokered an agreement on key elements of a US$1.3 billion Standby Loan Arrangement (SBA) for budgetary support for the economy, Finance and Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw, has announced. Funding is being sought by the administration in light of declines in revenue and foreign exchange earnings, due to the global...

The total cost of debt servicing (interest and amortization) during 2009/10 is 103% of the Government's total revenue and grants, Minister of Finance and the Public Service, the Hon. Audley Shaw, told the House of Representatives, Thursday (December 17). "It is a prescription for persistent poverty and social and economic chaos. We cannot continue to live in a fool's paradise...

Government will have to impose new taxes upon signing of the IMF agreement as a part of the measures to contain expenditure and increase revenue. Speaking on a radio and television discussion programme yesterday (Dec 13) Prime Minister the Hon. Bruce Golding said the new taxes will have to be imposed almost immediately. "Up to the end of October our...

Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, has said that the pending International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement, will not be a panacea for Jamaica's economic problems. Giving the main address at the 10th anniversary celebrations of Mega Mart Stores, held at Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, St. James, on December 12, Mr. Golding explained that there is at present a shortfall in...

Cabinet has instructed the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to develop new regulations under the Financial Administration and Audit (FAA) Act, to replace the existing Financial Management Regulations of 1996. Minister with responsibility for Information, Telecommunications and Special Projects in the Office of the Prime Minister, Hon Daryl Vaz, made the announcement at Wednesday's (December 9) post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House....

Fifty eight civil servants have completed training in Results-Based Management (RBM), following two one-week training workshops hosted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), at its Oxford Road office, New Kingston. The workshops, hosted November 30 - December 11, were intended to strengthen the capacity of the public sector, and its partners, to implement, monitor and evaluate the Vision 2030...

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon Audley Shaw, has said that his Ministry is widening the Development Bank of Jamaica's (DBJ) credit window to facilitate lending to farmers through credit unions. "What we have done is to suggest to the Development Bank of Jamaica that some of the money that is to on lend, should not just go...

Minister of State for Finance and the Public Service, Senator the Hon. Arthur Williams, has announced that increases in Government pension will be paid in January 2010. He made this disclosure at the Jamaica Government Pensioners Association Christmas luncheon held yesterday (Dec. 9) at the Knutsford Court Hotel. An amount of $500 million was allocated in the 2009/10 budget to...