Co-Chair of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, EPOC, Richard Byles, is not seeing eye to eye with the Simpson Miller administration about the possibility of achieving higher levels of growth.
Mr Byles was speaking this morning at EPOC’s monthly media briefing in New Kingston.
Last month Finance Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips announced that Cabinet had decided to establish a Sub-Committee to drive economic growth.
This, while announcing that the country could see growth levels as high as 3-percent, according to data provided him, by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. PIOJ.
Mr Byles, whom the parliamentary opposition has accused of being a mouth piece for the PNP administration, says he’s not optimistic the government will be able to generate growth of 3 percent or more given the current business environment.
In mid-September Finance Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, announced the establishment of a Cabinet Sub-Committee to drive economic growth.
This, he said was based on information provided by the PIOJ, projecting that the country can achieve growth of three percent, over the next fiscal year.
In the meantime, Mr. Byles has also noted that the almost 6-billion dollar shortfall in tax collection between April and August, was cause for some concern.
Despite the concerns, the EPOC Co-chair says the other quantitative indicators continued to perform better than projected.
He says primary surplus for the April to August period was 28-billion dollars or nearly 14 percent ahead of target.
And, he says the Net International Reserves, which stood at 2-point-2 billion US dollars at the end of September, was also much higher than the IMF’s target.
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