IMF approves $932 million facility for Jamaica

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday said it had approved US$932.3 million loan under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Jamaica.

The four-year extended fund facility will “support” the Jamaica government’s comprehensive economic reform agenda and forms a critical part of a total funding package of US$2 billion from Jamaica’s multilateral partners including the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with each having preliminarily agreed to allocate US$510 million over the next four years.

The IMF said the approval enables an initial disbursement by the Washington-based financial institution of US$207.2 million.

(More: A Stellar Record of Failure: The IMF and Jamaica)

IMF First Deputy Managing Director, David Lipton said that for most of the past three decades, Jamaica has suffered from very low growth, high public debt, and serious social challenges.

He said key factors behind these problems have been the country’s “unsustainable debt burden, low competitiveness, a weak business climate, and lack of policy credibility”.

Liptons aid that during 2012/13, the government began to tighten fiscal policy and prepared a comprehensive four-year economic reform program to address these challenges. -(CMC)