National budget credible and resilient - CAPRI

The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) has endorsed the recent budget for the fiscal year 2023/2024 as credible and resilient.

Executive Director of CAPRI, Dr Damien King made this disclosure during Wednesday evening's breakdown of the budget at the UWI Regional Headquarters in St Andrew.

“We conclude that there is sufficient resilience built into the budget and that the Government has promulgated a credible budget. A budget in which the estimates of expenditure and revenue are plausible and can be believed.

“Our conclusion is there is more resilience built into this current budget than probably any previous budget based on a number of considerations,” King told his audience.

One of the ways of determining credibility is to check if the figures projected for expenditure and revenue align with those of independent forecasts, the economist pointed out.

CAPRI said it looked into economic projections by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for Jamaica over 12 months, starting from April 2023 and found that the Government of Jamaica's forecasts fell within the band of these two agencies.

“The 1.6 per cent economic growth (projected by the Government) is actually within the range of those two institutions. Indeed, the IMF is forecasting high economic growth, so the Jamaican government has made conservative expectations in terms of growth. And so the numbers, the amount of revenue that they have forecast, based on economic growth are credible," King stated.

- Christopher Serju

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