KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, will be leading a Government delegation to Washington DC today to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WB).

According to a news release by the ministry, the three-day IMF/WB annual meetings will run from Thursday, October 6, through to Sunday, October 9, and will include seminars, regional briefings, press conferences, and other events focused on the global economy, international development and the world’s financial markets.

During his four-day travel overseas, the minister will also attend the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting, and the Joint Meeting of the Committees of the Boards of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC).

Shaw is expected to make an address and participate in a panel discussion on ‘Correspondent Relationships, De-risking and remittances in the Caribbean’ at the Small States Forum at the World Bank on Thursday. Shaw is also expected to participate in a breakfast meeting for Caribbean governors of the IMF, with Christine Madeleine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

The ministry said the finance minister is also scheduled to engage in a series of discussions with Luis Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Kyle Peters, vice president of the World Bank,and Tao Zhang, deputy managing director of the IMF.

The team will also reportedly be engaged in meetings with senior officials from the United States Treasury.

Discussions during the high-level meetings are expected to focus on Jamaica’s economic progress, economic corporation as well as the economic strategy and policies going into a new successor economic programme.

The minister is accompanied by Minister of State Fayval Williams; Financial Secretary Everton McFarlane; Senior Technical Advisor to the minister of finance and the public service Michael Thakur; and Senior Technical Assistant/BOJ Liaison to the minister of finance and the public service Hilary Robertson.