KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC) — A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday ended a two-week visit here saying that Jamaica could receive US$226 million if the executive board of the Washington-based financial institution approves a preliminary agreement that has been reached with the Andrew Holness government.
The head of the delegation, Uma Ramakrishnan, said that the agreement is for a set of policies that aims to complete the fourth review under the 36 month US$1.68 billion Stand By Agreement (SBA) that was approved on November 11, 2016.
“Upon approval, an additional US$226 million will be made available for Jamaica, bringing the total accessible credit to about US$1.2 billion. The Jamaican authorities continue to view the SBA as precautionary,” said Ramakrishnan, noting that the IMF’s executive board is tentatively scheduled to meet in November.
She said that the SBA programme implementation “remains robust” and that all quantitative performance criteria for end-June 2018 were met and structural reforms are on track.
“The primary surplus of central government operations exceeded the programme target by 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), driven mainly by continued buoyant taxes; capital expenditure, which has typically lagged, exceeded budget by 13 per cent; and non-borrowed reserves over-performed by about US$400 million”.
However, she noted that the inflation outturn for June 2018 was 2.8 per cent, below the programme target range.
The IMF said that economic growth is projected to reach 1.4 per cent in the financial year 2018/19, supported by mining and construction, and is expected to further increase to around two per cent over the medium-term.
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