IDB President Commends Government’s Fiscal Management

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is commending the Government of Jamaica for its fiscal management of the country.

In an interview with JIS News, IDB President, Mauricio Claver-Carone, said that the handling of the economy prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has put Jamaica in a great position to rebound.

“This is a Government that has done all the right things fiscally. You’ve seen this consolidation fiscally and therefore… thanks to the fiscal buffers that were created by the Government, [Jamaica] has not had some of the challenges that some of the other governments in the region have had,” he pointed out.

The IDB President and Chief Strategy Officer, Jessica Bedoya are leading a high-level mission to Jamaica from December 8-10.

Mr. Claver-Carone said that with the Government’s leadership, the IDB is interested in helping Jamaica accelerate its path to growing out of debt and the pandemic and is particularly interested in forging new public-private partnerships (PPPs).

“We are working with the Government to find new PPPs and projects that we can work on to also help the logistics of Jamaica. The more we can work on improving the logistics in terms of transportation, including energy, and the skills of the nation, it will become more attractive to investors,” he pointed out.

Mr. Claver-Carone told JIS News that the IDB is committed to making Jamaica the first choice for investment.

“We launched in February, the largest private sector coalition in the history of the bank and it includes companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Mastercard. We have grown from 20 (companies) to now 120, where now have Oracle and Netflix and what we are doing is, we are trying to show why Jamaica is the prime partner of choice,” he said.

Mr.  Claver-Carone noted that Jamaica’s reputation among global investors is respected.

“I am yet to meet an investor that is looking across the board that doesn’t say Jamaica is doing the right things fiscally and should be commended, and that gives them confidence to want to come to Jamaica,” he said.

As part of the mission to Jamaica, the IDB President and his team met with the leadership of JAMPRO on December 8, where they were able to get an update on the activities that have been implemented to foster growth.

“We are seeing how working with JAMPRO can bring in all of the digital services companies to invest more in Jamaica. I don’t want a single digital services company that is literally outsourcing to India to do so before first looking at Jamacia to make that investment,” Mr. Claver-Carone said.

This is the first official visit by the IDB President and his senior leadership team to Jamaica.

They are scheduled to meet with various members of Government including Prime Minister, the Most. Hon. Andrew Holness and Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. Nigel Clarke on December 10.

Chief Strategy Officer at the IDB, Jessica Bedoya, said that during the meeting with the Government officials “we definitely want a report card on how the IDB is doing for Jamaica and also hear from them, what we can do to improve and do better. We also [want] to find out what are the priorities for the next year or quarter so we (IDB) can be better prepared to respond.”