KINGSTON, Jamaica — Prime Minister Andrew Holness says having successfully reduced inflation from 12 to 5.6 per cent over the past three years, his administration is working aggressively to secure a further reduction in the cost of living.

The prime minister was speaking earlier this week during a tour of the Spring Village community in Old Harbour, St Catherine, where a new bridge is to be constructed in the vicinity of a processing plant.

Holness acknowledged what he noted are concerns about the cost of living in Jamaica and reasoned that inflation is a global problem, affecting even developed economies.

The prime minister commented that the Covid pandemic and the war in the Ukraine along with other global disruptions, have caused world prices for global shipping and other logistics to increase significantly, and triggered wide-ranging price increases in Jamaica and across the globe.

While noting that the increase in the cost of living is not the fault of the government, the prime minister reiterated that over the past three years, the government has successfully managed inflation, reducing the figure from almost inister explained that the Government has acted to manage factors over which it has some control, including, where possible, managing the cost of public transportation.

“As a government, we understand your concerns and we are working to keep prices as low as possible and to moderate price increases”, the prime minister assured.

During his address, the prime minister also moved to highlight how investing in infrastructure increases productivity and reduces the overall cost of production, thereby keeping the cost of goods to consumers stable.

He then went on to note that increasing output and efficiency can mitigate inflationary pressures in an economy. Holness further reiterated his call for a multi-stakeholder effort to increase productivity as one of the potentially most effective methods of countering inflation.

“Really what productivity is about is working smarter, using the same amount of energy and resources to produce more. How do we become more productive?  By making investments, such as fixing this bridge so that it takes you less time to get here and less energy. These are some of the things that the government is doing to improve the quality of life of our people”, the prime minister told his audience in Spring Village.