Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke, has welcomed the announcement by international financial news service Bloomberg that the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) has been the world’s leading performer over the past five years.

Dr Clarke told a Rotary Club of Kingston luncheon meeting at the Jamaica Pegasus, New Kingston, on Thursday, that the result makes Jamaica the best investment in the world today.

“That’s not measured in Jamaican dollars. It is measured in foreign currency as the best performing stock exchange in the world over the last five years. There is no better investment in the world over the last five years than investing in the real economy of Jamaica,” the minister noted.

“And let me just add to that, I want you to understand that those gains are also broad-based, because the 100,000 or so people who are in private pension plans have shared in those gains. The 400,000 people who are enrolled in the NIS have also shared in those gains, and the goal of the government is to broaden that base even further,” he added.

Clarke noted that, today, only 16 per cent of working people in Jamaica participate in a private pension scheme, but the government wants to see those numbers expand greatly over the next few years.

“The policy of the government is to broaden the ownership of the Jamaican economy by Jamaicans. You can work in the public or private sector and own a piece of the economy of Jamaica. The policy is going to be oriented around ensuring that participation in the ownership of equity in the companies and the stocks is broader tomorrow than it is today to ensure that the gains are shared by all,” he noted.

He said that the platform of policies at his ministry was aimed at: (1) economic independence; (2) protection of the vulnerable; and (3), economic opportunities for all.

“But a key plan in economic opportunity for all is to ensure that more and more Jamaicans own piece of our economy. The policy of the government is to use the divestment and privatisation of public assets in order to achieve that aim,” he said.

Using the Wigton Wind Farm as an example, he said that the government is in the process of divesting the project through an IPO administered by the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

“And the strategy is going to be to ensure that there is broad-based ownership of Wigton through the privatisation process,” he pointed out.

“The Wigton privatisation is going to be a bottom-up distribution, to ensure that all of those who apply for a minimum number of shares are filled, before those applying for a little more and, in that way, we are going to ensure that you, as citizens of Jamaica, people in the public service, people in the private sector who want to participate, who want to own a piece of Jamaican economic story can do so by their participating in the Wigton IPO,” he stated.

“And that won’t be the last. There will be others that will follow and we want to ensure that everybody has an opportunity, because this government believes in economic opportunity for all,” Clarke said.

An IPO is an initial public Offering, or the first sale of stock by a privately owned company to the public. IPOs are often issued by companies seeking the capital to expand, but in this case the government is divesting the company, for which it has 100 per cent ownership in public hands.