Business
Jamaica moving to sign agreement with IMF
Wan, who spoke on a television soon after Prime Minister Simpson-Miller and her finance minister Dr. Peter Phillip addressed the nation on the negotiations with the Washington-based financial institution, said he would have loved to see more evidence of “shared sacrifice” in the measures announced by the government.
Phillips said the launch of the national debt exchange offer on Tuesday would be done with the support of leading private sector financial institutions.
“Let me assure bondholders that there will be no haircut on their principal investment. This offer which we urge bondholders to accept will make possible the reduction of our debt to GDP ratios by 8.5 percent per year between now and 2020.
“Essentially this program exchanges higher interest debt for lower cost debt and will entail significant sacrifices from our financial institutions and the holders of our domestic bonds, it will be painful and difficult but we have no option.
“Many of our bondholders with good reason will immediately respond to this announcement with a sense of disappointment as they recall that they made a similar sacrifice for Jamaica three years ago, when they were assured that their sacrifice would have put Jamaica on the path of growth and stability.
President of the Jamaica Employers Federation (JEF), Wayne Chen, said the adjustment package announced by Phillips was “softer than it could have been which is not to say it is not going to be a difficult hurdle to overcome”.
He said it represented “a great opportunity to build that platform for sustained economic growth and development which has eluded us for many years”.
