FINANCE AND Planning Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, is expected to continue talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the next few weeks, in an attempt to come to an agreement on the method to monitor Jamaica's macro economic performance.
Dr. Davies left the island on May 7, to attend several high level meetings. He has so far completed a series of discussions with the IMF, the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the US Treasury In Washington DC.
In New York, he will be meeting with rating agencies, investment bankers and investors.
According to a release from the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) yesterday, Minister Davies in his discussions with the IMF, exchanged views with Managing Director Hortst Koehler on the factors preventing "more growth" in Jamaica and also discussed a possible structured relationship, given the Fund's decision to end the use of the Staff Monitoring Programme (SMP). He also had discussions on the present macro economic outlook, with specific focus on the recently presented budget for the 2003/04 fiscal year.
In March of this year, the IMF board decided to terminate the SMP following a review, which started in January. The Board stopped the programme because its directors felt they were being excluded from the assessment of countries, which was done through consultations between IMF staff members and the Governments of individual countries.
The termination of the programme did not only relate to Jamaica, but extended to all the countries that had SMP.
During the opening of the 2003/04 budget debate in April, Dr. Davies was quoted as saying that it was unfortunate and rather surprising that the decision to terminate the SMP was taken even before any new programme to replace it was developed.
The release noted that the IDB and the World Bank had agreed to explore ways, with the Jamaican Government, to minimise the level of counterpart funding the government would need to finance the completion of "priority projects" now being implemented.
