CHRISTOPHER BURNS Sunday, April 26, 2015
Jamaica’s appetite for debt has been years in the making. The accumulation of debt followed a period in the late 1970s when global oil prices, triggered largely by geopolitical events, forced the country to seek and rely on multilateral funding. However, acceleration of the country’s debt stock started in earnest during the 1980s. The debt reached 212.4 per cent of GDP by 1984, up from 63 per cent of GDP in 1980. The pattern of debt accumulation continued into the period between 1996 and 2003. The debt, as a percentage of GDP, increased from 76 per cent in 1996 to 147 per cent of GDP in 2003.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Debt-relief-for-Jamaica-will-not-happen-overnight_18813577
