The committee that monitors the economy and government policies has given its approval to measures to ease restrictions that affected the economy, including the reopening of the borders.
The Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC) on Monday reported on a meeting it held last week to review the macro fiscal programme of the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) for the fiscal year 2020/21 and over the medium term.
Representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the meeting of EPOC, chaired by banker Keith Duncan. Mr Duncan is also president of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ), the leading umbrella group for businesses in Jamaica.
EPOC is satisfied that the current macroeconomic programme is sufficiently robust and will provide a road map against which EPOC and all Jamaica can monitor Jamaica’s pathway to full recovery of the Jamaican Economy.
EPOC highlighted that, through prudent and well-structured economic reform efforts, Jamaica has achieved macroeconomic stability over the past seven years which has given the country a foundation to execute Jamaica’s recovery path.
The GOJ projects that the economy will contract by 5.1% in FY2020/21 but is expected to return to pre-COVID levels in FY2023/24. EPOC said “the road to recovery will be difficult, however, we believe that Jamaica has an accommodative monetary policy, sufficient liquidity, adequate international reserves and fiscal buffers that will see us through this challenging current fiscal year and should see Jamaica returning to a growth path in 2021/22.”
