KINGSTON, Jamaica - SINCE the present government was ushered into power in the election of 2011 there has been a great deal of hope that an International Monetary Fund agreement was necessary to put the economy on a sustained path for growth. A view I hold to be misguided — despite the importance of the programme. Of most importance is our own growth agenda.
The Government, having effectively concluded a deal with the IMF in May 2013 for a 4-year Extended Fund Facility commencing in 2013/2014, seems not to have given manufacturing any pride of place in the expected growth agenda of the Jamaican economy.
The 118-page report issued by the IMF recently only mentions "manufacturing" once; and the context was that HEART/NTA would train and certify workers in that industry as part of a labour market reform. The omission of the manufacturing sector from our primary growth strategy is unbelievable, given the contribution being made by this industry to our economy. Its omission also runs contrary to the IMF's own expectation of the critical need to "switch from domestic demand... to net exports". The IMF report names logistics, ICT and agriculture as the sectors that have the potential to drive economic growth. This, while manufacturing has contributed consistently an average of 8.72 per cent annually towards GDP over the last 5 years, compared to 5.78 per cent from agriculture.