The Financial Services Commission’s (FSC) series of town hall meetings reached Port Maria, St Mary, on Tuesday evening, attracting a larger- than- expected turnout, with residents packing the civic centre for the meeting.

“This is the largest turnout I’ve ever seen at any of our town hall meetings, the people of Port Maria have really turned out in large numbers,” said David Geddes, communication and international relations manager at the FSC.

“We usually cater for a hundred, but we don’t usually get that. In this case, we rented 120 chairs and had to get more; as you can see, it’s standing room only.”

The Port Maria meeting marked the first time that the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service was participating in the series, which also had the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Consumer Affairs Commission, Jamaica Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Insurance Association of Jamaica participating.

Geddes said the presentations went exceptionally well.

“We’ve had ‘How to create wealth’ and people are very interested in that; ‘How to plan for retirement.’ These are very critical subjects that persons need to learn about, and for the first time we have the Ministry of Finance joining us and did a very good presentation on ‘financial inclusion’.”

The next town hall meeting will be in Trelawny in March.

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