KINGSTON, Jamaica - Prime Minister Andrew Holness Wednesday defended his administration’s five per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in four years (5 in 4’) initiative even as he acknowledged that the island had not achieved the growth target it had been expecting last year.
“I still maintain that we can hit that five in four and we are working towards it because the moment I stop saying well, we change the projections that’s like sending a signal to all the agents in the system to reduce the effort,” Holness said, adding “the signal is keep your effort going that is what the five in four is about …”
The plan has been developed in collaboration with the Economic Growth Council (EGC) that was launched in April last year and Holness, speaking at a news conference, expressed confidence in the initiative.
“One thing we will have to get used to in this environment is that there are some things that are beyond our control…and the best laid plans are not always within the full remit and control of those who are planning it,” he said.
“The truth is there is a bigger picture of global action which has caused our climate to change and that change has an economic impact,” Holness said, indicating however “we have to plan as to how awe are going to respond to that…”
He said this would result in making the agriculture sector, for example, more productive and resilient, adding that it is imperative that “we move into modern agriculture and we regulate the agricultural markets…
“Yes of course if we don’t meet the five in four it would give concern for concern. Not just cause for concern for the aspiration that we have put to the people, but the people themselves should be concerned,” Holness said, adding “it is not a political I got you.
“Failure to meet the growth target is everyone’s loss but it does not stop us from aspiring from setting targets that we know we may not reach but they are targets that stretch us.
“So those who are lining up to say, ‘see him not going to reach it,’ I find that to be churlish. We must as a people aspire and it is the lack of that ambition that has been part of the reason. We have just been afraid to dream”. (CMC)