Jamaica’s first trillion-dollar budget tabled; debt service obligations reduced  

 

• Finance Minister Dr. Nigel Clarke has indicated that the Jamaican government plans to spend more than a trillion dollars over the 2023/2024 fiscal year on the central government.
• Funds for the 2023/24 Budget are allocated across the main expenditure categories. These comprise non-debt recurrent expenditure of $657.2Bn, capital expenditure of $74.4Bn, and debt servicing of $280.6Bn. Central Government revenue and grant inflows are estimated at $897.6Bn.
• When compared to the proposed allocation for the 2022/2023 fiscal year, government expenditures for non-debt recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure have increased by $52.7Bn (+8.7%) and $10.3Bn (+14.3%), respectively. However, expenditure for debt servicing decreased by $26.9Bn (- 8.7%) given the fall in the country’s stock of debt.
• This will generate the required fiscal balance surplus of $9.9Bn or 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with fiscal rules.
• The corresponding primary balance required for debt service and to generate the targeted fiscal balance is approximately $165Bn or 5.6% of GDP.
• Further, the overall public debt is estimated to end the current fiscal year on March 31 at 79.7% of GDP and is expected to decline further to 74.3% of GDP by fiscal year 2023/24. Should this (projection) be achieved, it would mark the first time since the nationalisation of the financial sector crisis through FINSAC in the latter half of the 1990s that debt has entered the domain of pre-FINSAC levels.

(Source: JIS News)