MONTEGO BAY, St James — In response to a recent call for the pegging of the Jamaican currency to the US dollar, Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke has highlighted the creation of 100,000 jobs among a raft of tangible gains the economy has derived from the current floating exchange rate regime.
“We have more people employed in Jamaica today than ever before as a result of the policies that Government is pursuing which build on policies pursued before, even with the Government before, and the Government before that,” the finance minister said.
In the wake of the recent fluctuation of the Jamaican currency, Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Howard Mitchell called for a fixed exchange rate regime by pegging the Jamaican currency to the greenback.
“I am calling for the Jamaican dollar to be pegged to the US currency. I am calling for it from Montego Bay because Montego Bay has the most experience with dollarisation. We can teach Kingston. I want to abandon this fiction of a managed exchange rate in our open, fragile economy,” Mitchell said last Tuesday at a function in Montego Bay.
But speaking from the same city during Wednesday evening’s official opening of the Victoria Mutual Fairview Financial Centre, Dr Clarke came out in staunch defence of the floating exchange rate, and said that the Government is bent on guarding against policy reversal.
“Members of the financial community, members of the community of those who are in the market for mortgages and home ownership, and those who want to take advantage of the opportunity that’s created by this unprecedented environment, you can act with every confidence that the Government of Andrew Holness, in which I have the privilege of being financial minister, will not be engaged in any policy reversal,” Dr Clarke said.
“We have borne too much; we have come too far. The fruits of our sacrifice are much too evident for us to jump on any train of policy reversal.
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