The Market and Economy in Jamaica

Jamaica is located 600 miles south of Florida and has a population of about 2.9 million (in 2013). The island is about 146 miles long and between 22 and 55 miles wide. It is the third most English speaking country in the western hemisphere behind Canada and the United States (Kingston.usembassy.gov). While when the Spaniards had taken over the island back in the late 1400s-early 1500s, the majority of the population was white, though today the vast majority is African descent or mixed race. The Honorable Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller is running the country now under the People’s National Party.

In Jamaica, corruption is a serious problem. While the majority of the GDP is earned by people making honest livings in agriculture, tourism or manufacturing industries, there is a lot of money made off of marijuana growth and sales. Because of that, Jamaica has one of the western hemisphere’s highest murder rates. Also, because the crime rate is so high, it could take years for a case to actually make it to trial. “Higher-ups” in Jamaica and in the Jamaican politics take advantage of that, and usually get away with a slap on the wrist if they are caught in the midst of it. In February of 2012, the Minister of National Security decided they were going to implement a 5-year crime plan to get the country back under control and have “increasing social intervention in communities dominated by criminals (photos.state.gov).”

• Available Markets

Jamaica’s main industries include: tourism, bauxite (which is used to make aluminum), agriculture, and some manufacturing industries such as rum, cement, metal, paper, chemical products, chocolate, cocoa and telecommunications (cia.gov). Jamaica has been working on making it easier to import and ...

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...rom 2007-10, and still remains low. They experienced thirteen quarters of decline in their economy between 2007 and 2010 (photos.state.gov).

The exchange rate of Jamaican dollars and U.S. dollars is 106.25:1 as of 3/25/14 (jncb.com). This has significantly gone up since 2008, when it was 72.24:1 (cia.gov).

• GDP

The GDP for Jamaica, in 2013, was $25.13 billion with a growth rate of 0.4% (cia.gov). Per capita in 2013 was $9,000. That ranks 125th out of the other countries in the world. The biggest part of their GDP comes from household consumption, which is 86.6%. Imports of goods and services are -58.4%.

Public debt is now higher than 145% of the country’s GDP. They are going into debt substantially every year. They have an agreement with the IMF for $1.27billion of payment support. They did have to commit to fiscal reforms, which are very slowly materializing.