In his first quarterly press briefing since becoming head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), returning émigré Dr. Gladstone Hutchinson advised that in addition to reporting on the performance of the economy at the macro and sectoral levels, the PIOJ will now report quarterly on how the economy is advancing our national development goals as framed under Vision 2030 Jamaica.

He emphasized that Vision 2030 was not a top down effort by planners, but was the product of comprehensive national discussions with stakeholders including political, religious, business, government, and civil society stakeholders.

Vision 2030 reflects our own aspirations as society, as expressed through four realistic national goals, namely :

1. To empower Jamaicans to achieve their fullest potential

2. To make the Jamaican society secure, cohesive and just

3. To make the Jamaican economy prosperous

4. To make the Jamaican natural environment healthy

The newly appointed Director General of the PIOJ argued that the global context includes a call by the President of the French Republic, Nicholas Sarkozy, at the beginning of the global financial crisis, to go beyond gross domestic product as the sole barometer of a nation’s state of health.

Hutchinson quoted from the Report by the Sarkozy appointed “Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress” issued in 2009.

The report notes that Sarkozy, being “unsatisfied with the present state of statistical information about the economy and society, asked Nobel Laureates in economics Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, among others, to create a commission to identify the limits of GDP as an indicator of economic performance and social progress, to consider what additional information might be required for the production of more relevant indicators of social progress; to assess the feasibility of alternative measurement tools, and to discuss how to present statistical information in an appropriate way.”

Hutchinson observed that our information society has more and more people looking at statistics to be better informed or to make decisions, that what we measure affects what we do, and if our measurements are flawed, public and private policy decisions may be flawed.

Critically, he observed that the 2030 vision, what he calls our “Jamaican plan”, the first long term national development plan of its kind, has three key benchmark areas other than the standard measure of prosperity, GDP.

The three other indicators include the measurement of how Jamaicans can be empowered so as to achieve their fullest potential including health (life expectancy), education (adult literacy rate, gross enrolment at the tertiary level as a percentage) and labour force quality (percentage certification of the labour force).

The measure of the degree the Jamaican society is “secure, cohesive and just” includes the murder rate per 100,000, which has doubled from 31 in 1995 to 62 in 2009. This compares with Jamaica’s 2030 target of 10, which is the global average rate in 2010. Interestingly, this increase in the murder rate has coincided with a decline in the case clearance rate from 97.8per cent in 1995 to 80.1per cent in 2009. The backlog iof cases increases for any percentage below 100per cent.

Finally, Jamaica has fallen in terms of the environmental performance index measure, from 74.7 in 2006 to 58 in 2009.

The Issue of growth

Asked on the role of the PIOJ in achieving better economic growth, Hutchinson argued that whilst the PIOJ could not “drive” growth, it would strive to help “create room for the government to be a better facilitator.” Whilst he did not support any move towards what he called “Jamaican exceptionalism” in terms of a growth strategy, he revealed that, under his watch, there would be an emphasis on facilitating the real economy. This would include a renewed emphasis on areas such as agriculture, manufacturing (through investigating synergies in areas such as logistics), transport (Jamaica’s location is our key competitive advantage), and urban development (with the latter being linked to commerce).

Whilst he did not say so, the latter statement sounded like a nod to the key importance of getting the strategy right for the revival of the downtown market, as part of the overall redevelopment of downtown Kingston. What is particularly interesting in this regard is that in his biography, Dr. Hutchinson refers to his research in innovations in public private partnerships for growth and in creating enabling environments for communities/stakeholders to “own” their development, research which at first glance appears relevant to Jamaica’s current situation. For example, this research experience would presumably be useful at the national level, such as a social partnership discussion (a revived partnership for transformation?), looking at current issues such as the role of the state, labour market reform, and the transformation of the civil service.

More importantly, Dr Hutchinson could bring a new focus to the issue of community empowerment, particularly to the next level down (non – national) issue of community public private partnerships. In particular, Dr Hutchinson emphasized the importance of de- Kingstonising growth and development in Jamaica, referring to the need to create “organic clusters” or growth poles in the key areas outside of Kingston. These growth poles will require external sources of demand. This demand could either be from merchandise exports ( manufacturing or agriculture) or what has been called a “reverse export” (meaning delivery here of a service to a foreign consumer) such as would be the case with a new health tourism industry, to be successful.

One of the areas where the PIOJ and the rest of the government need to show leadership is the whole issue of incentives and corporate taxation. The massive fiscal crisis faced by the Government means that it will not be possible to lower the overall corporate tax rate for everybody, however desirable. The second best alternative is to simply get rid of those existing incentives (with appropriate grandfathering), which are inefficiently targeted, and adopt say a 10per cent rate of corporate tax for manufacturing, agriculture and international traded services (including tourism) thereby narrowing the difference between the 0per cent incentive rate and the standard 33per cent. This move would be a critical “way station” to moving to a single corporate tax rate, such as in Hong Kong, just in time to target Chinese manufacturing investment driven by the logistics of our location.