Ja­maica has suc­cess­ful­ly met all the quan­ti­ta­tive per­for­mance cri­te­ria of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), for the March 2010 test date.

The IMF team, which was in Ja­maica car­ry­ing out a re­view of Ja­maica's per­for­mance un­der the stand-by arrange­ment (SBA) with the Fund, has found that Ja­maica's per­for­mance up to March 31 was bet­ter than an­tic­i­pat­ed. Based on the per­for­mance of the eco­nom­ic pro­gramme, the team an­nounced that it would be rec­om­mend­ing that the IMF ex­ec­u­tive board com­pletes the first re­view of the SBA, which will re­sult in the dis­burse­ment of 63.7 mil­lion spe­cial draw­ing rights (SDR). The board is ex­pect­ed to meet be­fore the end of June.

The team has been in Ja­maica since May 4 ex­am­in­ing the per­for­mance cri­te­ria, set out in Ja­maica's let­ter of in­tent. These tar­gets were fis­cal con­sol­i­da­tion and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, pub­lic debt re­struc­tur­ing, and fi­nan­cial sec­tor re­form. At a press brief­ing on Tues­day at the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Pub­lic Ser­vice, Trevor Al­leyne, chief of the Caribbean di­vi­sion of the IMF, an­nounced that "all quan­ti­ta­tive per­for­mance cri­te­ria for the end of March 2010 test date were met, with­out the need for waivers, and sub­stan­tial progress was made on the struc­tur­al re­form agen­da."

Sov­er­eign debt rat­ing

Au­d­ley Shaw, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Pub­lic Ser­vice, stat­ed that the high­er than ex­pect­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion rate in the Ja­maica Debt Ex­change (JDX), helped the coun­try to yield larg­er-than-an­tic­i­pat­ed sav­ings on the gov­ern­ment's in­ter­est bill. "In the pe­ri­od fol­low­ing the debt ex­change, cred­it rat­ing agen­cies up­grad­ed Ja­maica's sov­er­eign debt rat­ing. Eu­robond prices on sov­er­eign bonds have ral­lied and the Trea­sury Bill rates have fall­en to around 10 per cent a 28-year low in gov­ern­ment trea­sury bill rates," he said.

Shaw said among the key bench­marks achieved were re­forms to en­hance fi­nan­cial sec­tor over­sight and the di­vest­ment of Ja­maica. (Ja­maica In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice)