KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley says that Jamaica is ahead of its fiscal and net international reserve (NIR) targets for the current year.

Shaw asserted that private sector confidence continues to grow, as evidenced by the increase in lending to the productive sector.

The minister was opening the debate on the $12.8 billion increase in the budget recorded in the Supplementary Estimates which were tabled in the House of Representatives, last week.

He said that in the Government’s assessments, it is expected to meet all the quatitative performance criteria and structural benchmarks under the new standby agreement with IMF.

He said that in area of economic growth, real GDP growth for first half of this fiscal year was 1.7 per cent,  compared to 1.2 percent in first half of 2015/16.

This growth in the economy has been “fairly broad-based” with agriculture and fisheries growing by 17.4 per cent, hotels and restaurants by 1.7 per cent, electricity and water supply by 3.8 per cent and manufacturing and construction by 0.7 per cent, according to Shaw.

“Although this economic growth is in line with our 1.7 per cent official projection, under the IMF supported programme, I expect that growth could be closer to two per cent, if the momentum that we have seen thus far continues in the second half of the fiscal year,” the minister added.

Balford Henry