Holness: Jamaica’s debt profile preserves its sovereignty; China accounts for just 4%
Vanassa McKenzie / Our Today
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has once more sought to dispel claims that Jamaica is heavily indebted to the country of China.
Holness stressed that Jamaica’s sovereignty will not be threatened, as steps are being taken to reduce country’s debt and most of the country’s debt are to multilateral organisations.
“Thankfully, Jamaica’s debt profile its one that preserves our sovereignty in a big way. Most of our debts is to multilateral institutions, meaning we owe most of our debt to the IMF [International Monitary Fund], World Bank and the IDB [International Development Bank], there is not a lot of debt bilaterally, thankfully,” he said.
“There is a view that somehow Jamaica is heavily indebted to China. Jamaica’s debt to China is less than four per cent of our national debt. Jamaica is very careful about borrowing. As I have said before, we have ensured that the fiscal discipline is in place and the good thing is our debt have move from a 150 per cent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] to now at the end of this fiscal year it will be 74 per cent of GDP. The target is to get to 60 per cent by 2027/2028, there about, and I it think we will get way below that, we are on track for that. So, the concern that our sovereignty is compromised there are two things, you will see that we are reducing our debt and our debt are to multinational organisations,” he added.
Holness was speaking at a diaspora town hall meeting in Ottawa, Canada, last week.
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