Hughes

The shocks created by adverse weather conditions, coupled with spiralling commodities prices on the local economy, resulted in flat GDP growth in the October to December quarter of last year, rounding out overall growth for 2007 at 1.1 per cent.

Director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Dr Wesley Hughes, said the goods-producing sector, finance and insurance services, construction and installation, real estate and business services and the distributive trade all recorded growth, but that was not sufficient to offset the significant fallout in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors, mining, quarrying, electricity and water.

"Jamaica experienced some very difficult times. Real GDP was flat relative to the corresponding quarter of 2006 and the Government had to increase spending to deal with the impact of Hurricane Dean and weeks of devastating rainfall," Dr Hughes said during the PIOJ's quarterly press briefing on the performance of the economy at the institute's New Kingston offices yesterday. The fiscal deficit during the three month-period peaked at $18.6 billion, $2.6 billion more than projected because of a $3.5 billion overrun on expenditure.

The PIOJ director general pointed out that "these events caused significant damage to agriculture and the infrastructure of the country, [with the] resulting inflationary impulse flowing from these events exacerbated by rising import prices for oil and other commodities". Inflation for the period was 7.3 per cent.

This zero fourth-quarter growth in GDP comes in way below the PIOJ's projection of 1.2 per cent for the period under review.