KINGSTON, Jamaica — Finance and Planning Minister Dr Peter Phillips arrived in New York, today, to accept Jamaica’s award for Latin America Bond Deal of the Year at the 2015 International Financing Review (IFR) Americas Award Ceremony.

According to a news release from the finance ministry, IFR has deemed the bond deal as “record-breaking” for 2015.

In July 2015, the Government of Jamaica issued a US$2 billion dual-tranche bond in the international capital markets.

“In a tough year for emerging market issuers, Jamaica was able to undertake a liability management transaction that saw the country issue its largest bond, at the lowest coupon rates,” the release said.

The other part of the transaction saw the country using most of the proceeds of the bond issue to retire US$3 billion PetroCaribe debt at a price that reflected a deep discount, the release continued.

The transaction, according to the finance ministry, resulted in a reduction in the country’s debt to GDP ratio by approximately 10 percentage points.

In announcing Jamaica as the 2015 winner of the Latin America Bond Deal in the category of Emerging Markets, IFR noted that the US$2.0 billion deal represented Jamaica’s largest bond sale ever or some 14.6 per cent of the country’s 2014 GDP, a large sum for any country.

Quoting the head of Latin America Capital Markets Origination at Citigroup, Chris Gilfond, the IFR statement highlights: “Nobody comes close to 14 per cent in sum total of all their transactions, let alone in a single trade. Jamaica did it in a day.”

Max Volkov, head of LatAm Debt Capital Markets at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch said, “This puts Jamaica on a path of achieving its goal of breaking 100% per cent debt-to-GDP by 2020.”

While in New York, the Phillips will also engage in discussions with foreign direct investors regarding the economic programme being pursued, the reforms that have been undertaken to make Jamaica a more business-friendly environment and the myriad of investment opportunities that exist locally as a result of the changing macro-economic climate, the release said.

The rest of the Jamaican delegation comprises Financial Secretary Devon Rowe and the Technical Advisor to the minister, Helen McIntosh.

The team will return to Jamaica on Thursday.