IMF calls for 'integration'

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Published on Wednesday, 20 June 2012 10:38

Written by Julian Richardson

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Kingston, Jamaica (Jamaica Observer): Regional integration should be encouraged, the IMF's senior resident representative to Jamaica urged as the nation becomes divided over its relationship with the Caribbean Community (Caricom). "The entire Caribbean region can be a much stronger integrated network than it is now," said Dr Gene Leon of the International Monetary Fund. "But we cannot have regional integration and, at the same time, have national sovereignty and, at the same time, individual political and social agendas.

The three things do not mix. You cannot get all of them in exactly the optimal way, at the same time. There has to be a trade off and a consensus as to how we go forward," he told the Mona School of Business Doctorate of Business Administration Conference at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston.

The IMF recently lowered its growth forecast for the Caribbean, with Jamaica at the bottom of the regional pile. The multilateral predicted 3.5 per cent growth for the Caribbean in 2012, a downward revision from the 4.3 per cent projection made last September.

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