The World Bank is backing Jamaica’s economy to expand in 2024, for the fourth consecutive year, notwithstanding the somewhat gloomier projections for the remainder of the member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) with the exception of oil-rich Guyana. The Bank’s recently published forecasts indicate that Jamaica’s Gross Domestic Product is set to grow at 2 per cent in 2024 — down from 2.3 per cent last year. Should the prediction be realized, the report says, 2024 “would mark the second year in a row where growth would prove weaker than the previous 12 months.”
The forecast is for growth to continue in 2025, albeit at a slower pace of around 1.4 per cent. Should this be realized, it would mark “five (5) straight years of expansion” coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced decline in 2020. Setting aside Guyana, which is currently enjoying a higher growth from its oil resources, regional economies are expected to grow by 4.1 per cent in 2024 and 3.9 per cent in 2025, partly due to the ongoing expansion of the tourism sector, the report says. For Central America, steady growth is envisioned, with rates of 3.7 per cent in 2024 and 3.8 per cent in 2025. This outlook is supported by a moderate increase in remittances, particularly in 2024.
What makes the Bank’s projection for Jamaica’s economy even more notable is the fact that it has come against the backdrop of a general warning from the World Bank that the wider global economy “is on track for its worst half-decade of growth in 30 years, due to multiple challenges including higher borrowing costs, geopolitical tensions and weak global trade and investment.” The Bank’s Chief Econo-mist and Senior Vice President, Indermit Gill, is reported as endorsing these sentiments. The report has also made public the Bank’s full forecast for global growth to slow for the third year in a row—from 2.6 per cent last year to 2.4 per cent in 2024, almost three-quarters of a percentage point below the average of the 2010s.
The forecast, the Report says, points “to a difficult second half of a decade marked at the start by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a war in Eastern Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and decades of high inflation” which it said “triggered central banks across the globe to engage in the fastest rise in interest rates in several years.” The report adds, meanwhile that “near-term growth will remain weak, leaving many developing countries — especially the poorest — stuck in a trap, with paralysing levels of debt and tenuous access to food for nearly one out of every three people. That would obstruct progress on many global priorities,” the report adds.
