Yaneek Page | Balancing the books was step 1, building prosperity is step 2

Jamaica has entered a daring new chapter of its economic story. After more than a decade fixated on restoring fiscal stability, we are haunted by ghosts of the past that never left our side, namely, how to build an economy capable of sustained growth and higher productivity.

STEP 1: BALANCING BOOKS

For years, the national mission was clear: repair the balance sheet crippled by debt. That objective was largely achieved. But balancing books is vastly different from building a thriving economy.

To understand the distinction, imagine a large enterprise just over 60 years old. Once a success story, decades of decline eventually leave it in serious trouble. By 2013 the company is effectively bankrupt. It is drowning in debt, while production equipment is ageing, much of its young workforce is idle, and its core products and services are no longer competitive. Maintenance and investment have been deferred for years, while successive leadership teams borrow simply to keep the lights on.

Eventually, creditors begin circling and liquidation is knocking at the door.

A new chief financial officer (CFO) arrives with a narrow mandate: survival. He is not hired to design new products, explore new markets, or rebuild the company’s growth engine. His job is to stabilise the finances.

Over the next decade he renegotiates crushing debt, cuts spending, and imposes discipline on a system that became too comfortable with chaos. He builds financial buffers against future shocks and restores credibility with lenders and investors. Slowly the balance sheet stabilises. Creditors step back, confidence returns, and the company becomes bankable again. By 2024 the CFO is showered with accolades, as he steps back from the role, leaving a BB credit rating and manageable debt. Yet, there is still one huge elephant in the room. The bigger problem was not addressed: the company is solvent but not profitable, because the growth engine was not rebuilt. No frameworks for innovation were created, nor supportive infrastructure or ecosystems developed, and barely any highly globally competitive products and services exist. Even if the new markets and new customers had been secured – which they were not – there is inadequate value to deliver.

Fasten your seat belt, because here is where turbulence hits hardest: Almost everyone is now working. Employees show up daily and they are doing busy work. Still, the output does not cover the company’s basic overheads.

The CFO saved the company from collapse, but he did not, and quite frankly, could not have created prosperity. That was never his assignment. That company, by and large, is Jamaica.

Under the stewardship of former Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke, Jamaica executed one of the most dramatic fiscal turnarounds in the developing world. Public debt, which once exceeded 140 per cent of GDP in 2013, has fallen to the low 70 per cent range. Primary budget surpluses have been maintained, and international reserves remain strong, strengthening financial stability and buffering the country from external shocks. These achievements restored investor confidence and repositioned Jamaica as a disciplined economy on the global stage.

But fiscal stability alone cannot produce prosperity.

STEP 2: BUILDING PROSPERITY

We need the operational equivalent of that fiscal discipline, leadership focused squarely on productivity and growth. Jamaica needs the best GDP tsar tax money can buy – and that talent search must extend to every corner of the earth, because we do not have time for extended trial and error. Not a politico cosplaying a GDP hero, but a maverick with the courage, ingenuity, and the track record of a thousand Davids, to slay the goliath of low productivity that has had us in a 40-year chokehold.

For decades, the country has struggled with extremely low productivity growth. Historically, real GDP growth has hovered between negative territory and roughly 2.0 per cent annually, among the slowest in the Caribbean. In 2020, over 22 per cent of Jamaica’s GDP was remittances from our diaspora.

In recent times unemployment has fallen to historic lows. In April 2025, the unemployment rate reached approximately 3.3 per cent, the lowest level ever recorded. Yet this begs a troubling question: if more Jamaicans are working than at any point in the nation’s history, yet economic output has not expanded at a comparable pace, what exactly are we producing?

We can point fingers and reduce this catastrophe to a superficial critique of Jamaican workers, or we can all pause and take collective responsibility for our roles in reinforcing this albatross.

The comparison with our neighbours in Barbados is instructive. Despite being far smaller in both landmass and population, and with very limited natural resources, Barbados generates significantly more economic output per citizen. In 2025, Barbados’ GDP per capita was roughly US$27,000, while Jamaica’s was around US$8,000. The fact that the average Bajan worker produces several times more economic value each year than the average Jamaican worker is not explained solely by government policy or worker effort. It forces difficult questions for entrepreneurs, self-employed, SMEs, creatives, industry leaders, and policymakers alike.

Our trade balance illustrates the challenge clearly, as in the first 10 months of 2025 Jamaica imported roughly US$6.2 billion in goods, while exporting only around US$1.5 billion, leaving a deficit approaching US$5 billion.

Food provides perhaps the clearest illustration of this structural imbalance. Despite possessing some of the most fertile agricultural land in the Caribbean, Jamaica’s food import bill has hovered around US$1 billion annually in recent years.

Energy costs further compound the challenge of productivity. Electricity prices in Jamaica are among the highest in the Western Hemisphere, averaging roughly US$0.29 per kilowatt-hour for households in 2025. High energy costs ripple through the entire economy, raising the cost of production and limiting competitiveness.

In many ways, despite Dr Nigel Clarke’s best recent efforts, Jamaica cannot yet afford Jamaica.

The country struggles to comfortably finance the size of the government it operates. Import dependency remains high. Social safety nets face growing pressure from demographic shifts. At the same time, the scale of investment required for global competitiveness looms large.

These realities should force a referendum on complex issues at multiple levels.

At the individual level, every Jamaican must ask: what do I produce? Is it on par with international peers? And is this the highest and best use of my talents?

At the company level, businesses need to revolutionise performance dashboards to include globally competitive goods and services, level of exports, or outcomes that support export substitution.

At the industry level, key sectors such as tourism and business process outsourcing must begin shifting towards higher-value services, rather than relying primarily on scale, cheap labour and volume. Some models are simply not working for our best national interest.

And at the national level, Jamaica must tackle the institutional and administrative barriers, and policies that continue to constrain productivity and innovation.

If we fail to confront the productivity question directly, fiscal stability will buy us a bit more time, but never prosperity. And very soon, time is the resource we may not be able to borrow again.

One love.

Yaneek Page is the programme lead for Market Entry USA and a certified trainer in entrepreneurship.