Issues more currency than redeemed December 19-30

Durrant Pate/Contributor

The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) is reporting a J$27.7 billion growth or a 13.4 per cent increase in the currency stock for December 2022 compared with the previous month of November 2022.

This was higher than the BOJ’s projection for month-over-month growth of J$21.5 billion or 10.4 per cent in December. The rate of growth in currency issue for the month was higher than the 11.0 per cent growth recorded for December 2021.

During the last 10 work days of 2022 (December 19-30), the BOJ issued J$13.7 billion more in currency than it redeemed from financial institutions (commercial banks, building societies and cambios).

Stock of currency at year end

As at end of 2022, the stock of currency was J$233.8 billion, representing an annual nominal growth of 3.0 per cent, compared with an annual growth of 19.1 per cent at the end of December 2021.

When the estimated change in the general level of consumer prices for 2022 is considered, the currency stock in real terms is estimated to have declined for the year by 7.0 per cent, compared to real growth of 11.0 per cent for 2021.

The BOJ anticipates that most of the currency issued during December 2022 will be redeemed during January 2023. For the last five years, net currency redemption in January averaged 76.5 per cent of the net currency issued in the preceding month.