Nigel Clarke, Jamaica’s minister of finance and the Public Service, recently wrote a column for the Financial Times , one of the world’s leading business publications, explaining how Jamaica has managed to cut its public debt over a short period of time by the equivalent of half its gross domestic product.
In the article entitled “Lessons from Jamaica for small countries with big debts” the minister noted that this was done without “handouts, debt relief or bilateral debt support from ‘friends’ ”.
The opinion piece received some positive feedback with one reader referring to it as an “uplifting story” and another writing that the formation of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee was an interesting concept. Others expressed that Jamaica’s strategy could be followed by other countries with similar challenges.
“Perhaps Clarke might invite Imran Khan to Jamaica for a first-hand grasp of how to help Pakistan out of its fiscal crisis — share the love,” read one of the comments.
However, there were opinions that were more critical of Clarke’s assessment. These criticisms revolved around Jamaica’s primary surplus of seven per cent of GDP. One reader referenced other articles from the Financial Times written by former senior IMF economist Peter Doyle, who stressed the cost of such a high primary surplus.
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