THE country was aghast at the pronouncement by the esteemed and renowned bible of financial journalism, Forbes Magazine, that Jamaica comes in as the fifth worst economy in the world. The local media wasted no time in broadcasting the solemn news with people proclaiming ‘It has to be true if it is in Forbes.’

But Forbes is no longer the bastion it once was. In recent times it has become beset by dwindling readership and falling advertising and now takes on a more populist approach in an effort to garner revenues.

Daniel Fisher of Forbes writes: “To construct our list, we ranked 177 countries according to three-year average statistics for gross domestic product growth and inflation (including the IMF’s 2012 estimates), plus GDP per capita and the current account balance, a measure of whether the country is importing more than it exports.”

It must be made unequivocally clear that the Jamaican economy is in a parlous and desperate state. The debt-to-GDP ratio is inordinately high at around 120 per cent. But a cursory glance at this list sees Jamaica as the only Caribbean country in the top 10 and no mention of the likes of Guyana and Haiti, which are bigger countries and unarguably fare far worse than Jamaica does.

The ‘experts’ at Forbes must have been asleep at the wheel or thought that their reputation would excuse them from scrutiny. There is no time to go through all the countries in the world, but the Caribbean is closer to home. Both Haiti and Guyana have, in recent years, been absolved, to some degree, of their debt burden. Jamaica has made it part of national policy to honour all its debts. The CIA World Factbook is a font of information and the data there tell the real story. It’s a pity Forbes didn’t do its homework. However, it may well have excluded Haiti, opting not to pour further misery on the earthquake-shattered country. But, as they say, reality is reality.

The CIA World Factbook says that for 2010 Haiti’s total GDP was US$11.48 billion, with a GDP per capita of US$1,200. Its unemployment rate is a whopping 40.6 per cent while 80 per cent of the population is below the poverty line and 54 per cent in abject poverty.

The earthquake caused the country’s GDP to contract an estimated 5.1 per cent in 2010. Haiti received debt forgiveness for over US$1 billion through the Highly-Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative in mid-2009. The remainder of its outstanding external debt was cancelled by donor countries in early 2010 but has since risen to about US$400 million.

The Government there relies on formal international economic assistance for fiscal sustainability, with over half of its annual budget coming from outside sources. It has a current account balance of minus US$781 million and exports US$530.2 million worth of goods and imports US$2.7 billion worth of goods and services.

Guyana’s total GDP in 2010 was just US$5.3 billion with a real GDP growth rate of 3.6 per cent. Its GDP per capita is surprisingly US$7,200. The unemployment rate is 11 per cent with inflation coming in at 6.8 per cent. Its public debt is 57 per cent of GDP. For the same year Jamaica recorded a total GDP of US$23.72 billion and a real growth rate of -1.1 per cent. Its GDP per capita came in at US$8,300 with the unemployment rate standing at 12.9 per cent. Addressing poverty, The CIA World Factbook reveals that 16.5 per cent of the Jamaican population is living below the poverty line.

More recently, Jamaica has scored some positives which Forbes neglected to take into account. Interest rates are trending down, the reserves now stand at around US$3 billion, the exchange rate is stable, the Jamaica Debt Exchange has to date proved successful. Yesterday, Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced that inflation had fallen by 1.7 per cent for the first five months of the year, and thus is on course to meet the target of coming in below double digits this fiscal year.

The scourge of crime in Jamaica blights the reputation of the country and this might have played a role in Forbes’ damning assessment. In this regard, the Dudus/Manatt affair did Jamaica no favours. The Government must now put that unseemly episode behind it and focus on economic growth. ‘One of the murder capitals of the world’ is a tag Jamaica does not need.

Democracy reigns in Jamaica and unlike many countries where unpalatable political practices stymie the economy, that is not the case here. Yes, economic mismanagement has set the country back but there are far more difficult places on this earth to live in. Putting a bunch of numbers in the mix does not give a true account of the economic efficacy and viability of Jamaica, nor does it speak to the well-being of a country’s citizenry. In Jamaica the rule of law prevails: there are timely general elections, the State is not prone to, on a whim, sequester personal property. Free trade and capitalism are the modes of business. Admirable traits of governance are adhered to and practised in Jamaica.

The Vanity Fair article, ‘The Day of the Crocodile’, paints a bleak picture of Zimbabwe under the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe who presides over hyperinflation and a large external debt burden. Up to 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely printed money to fund the budget deficit.

Again, according to the CIA World Factbook, Zimbabwe has a GDP (purchasing power parity) of US$5.4 billion and a GDP per capita of just US$500 (2010). Its unemployment rate is an unbelievable 95 per cent with 68 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. It has a public debt which is 149 per cent of GDP with an inflation rate of 5.03 per cent.

Zimbabwe has a current account balance of minus US$597.4 million. Its foreign exchange reserves are only US$111 million with an external debt of US$5.82 billion.

It must be said that since 2009 Zimbabwe’s economy has been growing at a brisk pace despite continuing political uncertainty. Following a decade of contraction, Zimbabwe’s economy recorded real growth of 5.9 per cent in 2010. Would one therefore say that Zimbabwe is a better economy than Jamaica in 2011? Is it a better country to live in? Can one honestly say, looking at these figures, that Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe is a far better country to exist and prosper than Jamaica? Is Jamaica really the fifth worst economy in the world?

Jamaica has recently emerged from 13 consecutive quarters of negative growth. Yes, it did go back to the IMF and faces a number of challenges, particularly addressing the current account deficit.

The Forbes Magazine assessment of Jamaica concedes: “The poverty rate has been cut almost in half by 10 per cent in recent years while literacy has increased to 88 per cent, according to the World Bank. But the global financial crisis took a toll on this vacation island’s economy with GDP shrinking four per cent in the last two years and expected to grow at less than three per cent through 2015.

“High inflation and a persistent current-account deficit make increasing the wealth of the average citizen a challenging goal. Jamaica’s GDP per capita is US$5,473 and inflation is seven per cent.”

Forbes’s top 10 worst economies in the world are: 1. Madagascar, 2. Armenia, 3. Guinea, 4.Ukraine, 5. Jamaica, 6. Venezuela, 7. Kyrgystan, 8. Swaziland, 9. Nicaragua, 10. Iran.