Category: Top stories: Local

The start of a new year usually fills our hearts with optimism and hope for a better future. I’ve always been fascinated by this phenomenon – why should this period inspire us to create lofty resolutions and ambitious declarations? Why do we anticipate that the fading old year will usher in bright beginnings?

MINISTER of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Karl Samuda says the Government will continue to press banks to reduce unfair and exorbitant service fees, and that the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) will expose such practices wherever they are found.

Sovereign bonds have long been used by investors to increase their wealth. Many of our investors will remember the days of Brazil sovereign bonds in 1999 and the Russian sovereign bonds around the same period which allowed them to realize sizable capital appreciation in the subsequent years.

<As the year draws to a close, it is instructive to examine the country’s economic indicators to assess whether the country is poised for growth.

JAMAICA remains on target with its Stand-By Arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), passing the third quarter test as it did in the previous two.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced yesterday that it had revised Jamaica’s economic growth target for the current fiscal year to -0.5 per cent.

PRIME Minister Bruce Golding has disclosed that the Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) is currently reviewing the practices of commercial banks as they relate to interest rates.

The Jamaican economy has been thrown into a tail-spin by several days of bad weather that affected the island in late September, with the country’s central bank this week unveiling a litany of negative economic prognostications, which have replaced its previous, more optimistic fore-cast for fiscal indicators such as GDP growth and shrinking inflation.

Jamaica’s central bank says it is ready to receive applications for the establishment of credit bureaux, now that the requisite laws and regulations have been passed.