(Jamaica Observer) – Jamaica is poised to receive a second draw down of US$170 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Precautionary StandBy Arrangement.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness met the team from the IMF which is currently conducting the first review under the arrangement with the Fund.
On completion of the review, the drawdown will bring to total that will be available to the Bank of Jamaica to manage shocks that could create risks to an investor to US$600 million.
Speaking at a BOJ quarterly press conference Governor Brain Wynter said the bank’s assessment indicates that all of the quantitative performance criteria and the structural benchmarks for the review period have been met.
“This includes the target for non-borrowed reserves, also inflation target range of one per cent and nine per cent under the SBA. The out turn for December 2016 at 1.7 per cent sits comfortably within that range,” he said.
Nonetheless, inflation is expected to trend up over the March 2017 quarter to end the fiscal year somewhat below the target range of 4.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent.
For the fiscal year 2017/18, inflation is projected to range between four per cent and six per cent as price pressures to remain subdued at an average of approximately 0.4 per cent per month, similar to the monthly inflation in the last few months.
