MORE of Jamaica’s agricultural products must be used to feed tourists who visit Jamaica, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw has insisted.

Shaw, who was addressing the Leaders-to-Leaders speaker series on Brexit matters last Wednesday at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in St Andrew, said that far too much of Jamaica’s resources were being spent to import vegetables in particular, which could be grown here and used in the tourism industry.

“Only five per cent of our production of agricultural goods go to feed tourists. That is ridiculous. This cannot continue,” Shaw told the audience. He stated that there is a new thrust that will seek to grow the agriculture sector even further — a move that he is sure will redound to the benefit of the Jamaican economy and increase growth.

“The Government is now looking at its land use policy. Anywhere that sugar can grow, vegetables can grow. We have to get ourselves out of this situation,” the finance minister said.

Regarding growth projections, Shaw again stressed that the methods used to calculate growth would be revisited, as there is a genuine feeling that Jamaica has been achieving economic growth but the real effects are not being shown, based upon how growth figures are calculated.

“Over 40 per cent of the economy is informal, which is why we are not properly measuring growth in the economy. How can we have a 2.4 per cent drop in unemployment — creating 60,000 jobs and it’s not showing up in our growth figures?” Shaw questioned.

“We are still using the 1996 to 2008 standards used to calculate growth. The level of activity in our economy is not being reflected in our growth figures. When you look at growth in the construction sector for example, you will see that it’s not reflected in the economy. Something is radically wrong,” the finance minister said.

Shaw also told guests that the long-awaited report on the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) would be out soon, as the report was, in his estimation,”very relevant today”, since it was a period in which interest rates averaged between 53 per cent and 110 per cent interest penalties in overdraft during the decade of the 1990s, presided over by then Minister of Finance and Planning Dr Omar Davies.

The story of the collapse of the productive sector, Shaw said, needs to be told. Using himself as an example of one who was a victim of FINSAC, he said that he lost a block factory, hardware store, and was forced to borow money at interest rates of betwen 15 and 20 per cent, which skyrocketed to rates of “30, 40, 50 and 60 per cent.

“We have to ensure that we never go back there. The psychology of the banking sector is still affected. The average lending rate is between 13 and 14 per cent, and this Government has dropped interest rates by two per cent since we took office. Lower interest rates will make borrowing cheaper and investment easier,” said Shaw, who also urged speculators not to “play around” with the exchange rate, as Jamaica is not short of foreign exchange. “Stop fooling around with the exchange rate,” Shaw warned.