IT is undoubtedly a coincidence that Jamaica’s budget was tabled the same day when the Thursday headline of leading international financial news provider Bloomberg screamed “Germany Rejects Loan Request Saying Greece Must Meet Conditions”. For the first time, both the estimates of expenditure and the revenue (tax) measures were tabled at the same time, well before the beginning of the 2015/2016 financial year in April.

Unlike Greece, whose last completed review under the so-called Troika (European Union, European Central Bank and IMF) was last year in June, having previously required waivers, Jamaica is on track to pass seven IMF tests up to December, with every effort being made to pass the eighth test due at the end of March.

Even without seeing the actual budget, which at the time of writing is to be tabled this afternoon, the key economic parameters for Jamaica’s next fiscal year are already known. The most critical is the target for an overall primary surplus (revenues minus expenditures excluding interest costs) of 7.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, and the need to reach the nine per cent of GDP wage bill target by 2016, the latter being not just an IMF target but now part of our fiscal responsibility legislation.

This is probably the world’s most aggressive primary surplus target, reflecting our still high debt servicing costs, although we don’t have the world’s highest debt to GDP ratio.

Jamaica’s total public debt, as calculated in US dollars by one leading global investment bank, contracted 2.4 per cent to $17.79 billion in 2014 from $18.22 billion in 2013, driven largely by the impact of the fall in the Jamaican dollar on the value of Jamaica’s domestic debt, which represents 51 per cent of total debt.

As a percentage of GDP, this was a marginal reduction to 127 per cent in 2014 from 128.4 per cent in 2013, compared with Greece’s debt to GDP ratio of around 175 per cent.

In comparing Greece and Jamaica, there are a number of key differences. After its debt restructuring, unlike Jamaica, more than 80 per cent of Greece’s debt is now held by the official sector, meaning European governments (or more accurately their special purpose vehicles), the European Central Bank, and the IMF. Indeed, although oversight is shared, Greece is in an IMF programme for all intents and purposes, the main difference being that decisions are made at the European political level and not by IMF technocrats.

According to the IMF, Greece achieved a primary surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP in the fiscal year up to 2014, was supposed to achieve a primary surplus of three per cent of GDP in the current fiscal year (it appears to be “off track”), and was scheduled to achieve a primary surplus of 4.5 per cent of GDP in the coming fiscal year, coinciding with our new budget period.

Based on Greece’s current interest costs of a little under three per cent of GDP, in the unlikely event of Greece meeting the primary surplus target in this current fiscal year it would have had a balanced budget. This is a truly mammoth fiscal adjustment from double-digit fiscal deficits.

Judged on the basis of where Greece was coming from, eg, a substantial primary deficit, particularly cyclically adjusted to reflect that Greece has spent six years in recession, Greece has made a truly heroic fiscal effort, greater than that of Jamaica, even if one goes back to the beginning of the crisis.

With their current primary surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP, however, combined with the size in the likely miss in the current primary surplus this year, and the apparent desire of the new government to renegotiate that target for next year down to the same 1.5 per cent of GDP (to allow for increased social spending), it would mean that if Greece is successful, Jamaica is now making five times the fiscal “effort” with its 7.5 primary surplus.

This of course also reflects their relative starting point, as before the crisis, (unlike Jamaica), Greece was running a large primary deficit even before including any interest costs.

The pressures of meeting the programme targets appear to have been the key factor in Greece calling an early election, which was won by the anti-austerity left wing party Syriza, on the platform of renegotiating Greece’s bailout and ending “austerity”.

A period of frenetic, somewhat acrimonious negotiations followed between Greece’s new leather-jacketed Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Greece’s youngest ever Prime Minister, 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras with their European counterparts,.

However, despite providing the international media with almost endless sound bites, Varoufakis, a largely British University-educated, Texas-based professor of economics specialising in game theory, has apparently not yet succeeded in moving European governments.

There is a much longer debate, with European-wide implications, to be had over the policy implications of what the election of an anti-austerity party in Europe means, and whether European economic policy has been correct, but that is not for today.

It is worth mentioning, however, that Greece has already received significant interest payment relief, which is why its average borrowing costs are only marginally above Germany’s, as well as having the repayment of principal being pushed out quite a number of years.

In short, if Jamaica — with its much higher cost of financing and shorter maturities — had a similar deal, its financial problems would essentially be solved. In fact, ironically, before the election of Syriza, it appeared that the EU, recognising the efforts Greece had made, was thinking of providing even more debt relief.

The interesting question now is whether, despite its popular mandate, Greece’s negotiating style has actually been counter-productive, in that the Germans (incidentally amongst the largest source of Greek tourists) so far show no signs of budging.

What is certainly true is that, unlike what financial markets appeared to be assuming until recently (a typical European fudge of the issues to kick the can down the road), it is a real issue whether Greece stays in what is effectively an “IMF” economic reform “programme” as demanded by Germany and others or continues to risk “Grexit”, meaning an exit from the Euro, probable debt -default and capital controls. We will explore these and other important contrasts and similarities in other articles.