Growth Council wants to model success of economic reform programme

Chairman of the Economic Growth Council (EGC) Michael Lee-Chin has expressed confidence that the council will be able to achieve a similar level of success obtained by the economic-reform programme, which has brought about several improvements in Jamaica's macroeconomic fundamentals.

Over the past three years, the economic-reform programme, implemented with support funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has resulted in single-digit current account deficit, a near tripling of the Net International Reserves, and credible reductions in the size of the national debt.

According to Lee-Chin, these achievements provide the motivation for all stakeholders to coalesce around the set of growth-inducing recommendations published in a special 'Call to Action' supplement released by the council in The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.

"We are emboldened by our recent collective experience, where the application of societal resolve towards achieving fiscal sustainability has borne much fruit," he said.

The EGC chairman further pointed out that he was convinced that building consensus around recommendations proposed by the council would echo the success of the reform programme.

The publication of the 'Call to Action' supplement will be contextualised by The Gleaner's Growth & Jobs feature sponsored by Jamaica National, GraceKennedy, the Development Bank of Jamaica, and the Port Authority.

Growth & Jobs will be published in tomorrow's Gleaner.