The Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) reckons that the discipline of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has helped Jamaica to maintain a fairly stable economy despite a 0.3 percent decline in the country’s growth.
PSOJ president William Mahfood was speaking at the launch of the case studies and documentary of the Inter-American Development Bank/Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) financed institutional strengthening of the NCB expansion of the Small Business Financing project at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Jamaica Observer online reported.
“Jamaica over the past year and half has actually had a fairly stable economy, and a lot of that has really to do with the sort of positive discipline that the IMF has helped to bring on this fiscal management,” Mahfood stated.
“I think it’s very important to put into context an economy like Greece which has had similar issues and programmes as Jamaica. They have had a 20 per cent contraction in their economy, while Jamaica over the past year and a half has actually had a fairly stable economy,” he added.
According to PIOJ statistics, the economy went into a recession last December quarter following its second consecutive decline for 2014.
The PIOJ blamed the country’s performance on an estimated decline of 3.7 percent in the goods-producing industry due to the impact of drought conditions on agricultural production which prevailed from the previous quarter. The electricity and water supply industries also declined 2.7 percent.
However, the Institute expects to see a recovery of up to 1.5 percent over the January to March 2015 period.
