• The competitiveness of a tourism destination requires an effective human capital management plan, where the workforce becomes the primary focus as stated by Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett. 
• Against this background, the Tourism Ministry has established the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI) as the primary platform to build a quality tourism workforce that can access attractive jobs that offer decent work, social protection, and upward social mobility. 
• This process starts from secondary schools where the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) is collaborating with the Ministry of Education and Youth on a training and certification programme for tertiary and secondary-school students as part of Government’s Human Capital Development strategy to ensure the sustainable development of tourism 
• The JCTI also focuses on offering middle management certification programmes covering Certified Food and Beverage Executive (CFBE), Certified Hospitality Housekeeping Executive (CHHE), Certified Hospitality Trainer (CHT), and Certified Hotel Concierge (CHC). 
• These initiatives under the JCTI will aim to increase service quality in the tourism sector which will add to the overall attractiveness of Jamaica’s tourism product.

(Sources: Cointelegraph.com)

• With global oil prices now at the highest level in seven years, Guyana’s prospects of earning more money from its next oil lift is greater than ever before. 
• At end of Tuesday, the cost for Brent – the benchmark Guyana uses to sell its crude – stood at approximately US$86 per barrel. Should this remain the case when the country sells its ninth one-million-barrels of oil in the coming weeks, the sale could rake in as much as US$86 million, up from the US$73.8 million received from the eighth oil lift in November 2021. 
• Given that the oil and gas sector accounts for more than 17% of total GDP, it will be one of the factors driving the projected 48.7% economic growth for 2022. In the coming years, Guyana is looking to position itself as a key producer with the capacity to cushion some of the supply shortfalls on the global market. The nation remains poised to become a major supplier within the global oil market, at least for the next 100 years.

(Sources: Guyana Chronicles & NCBCM Research)

• After more than four years of negotiating with bondholders on how to reduce its debt load, Puerto Rico’s record municipal bankruptcy is coming to an end. 
• The federal judge overseeing the bankruptcy case on Tuesday approved a debt restructuring plan that’s seen as the last major hurdle in order to exit court protection. It shrinks $22 billion of bonds down to $7.4 billion and established a reserve trust to fund the island’s broke pension system. 
• While the bankruptcy process cut Puerto Rico’s annual bond payments down to $1.15 billion, it’s not a cure for its underlying issues, including a shrinking population and weak infrastructure. And the government still needs to come up with $3.4 billion a year to cover all its debt and pension benefits costs. 
• However, exiting bankruptcy will allow the island to move beyond default, begin repaying bondholders and creditors, focus on growing its economy and rehabilitate a weak electrical grid that suffers from chronic outages. Additionally, the US commonwealth will need to restore bondholder confidence that the island can balance its budget without using borrowed money.

(Sources: Bloomberg & NCBCM Research)

• The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to a three-month high last week, likely as a winter wave of COVID-19 infections disrupted business activity, which could weigh on job growth in January. 
• The third straight weekly increase in jobless claims reported by the Labour Department on Thursday was also influenced by unfavourable seasonal factors after the holidays. But coronavirus cases, driven by the Omicron variant, are subsiding and the seasonal factors, the model used by the government to iron out seasonal fluctuations in the data, are seen normalising soon, suggesting the recent surge in applications is a blip. 
• "The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is hurting the U.S. labour market, but the good news is that this will be temporary," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. 
• Initial claims for state unemployment benefits surged 55,000 to a seasonally adjusted 286,000 for the week ended Jan. 15, the highest level since mid-October. The increase was the largest since last July. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 applications for the latest week. 
• Several labour market indicators such as job vacancies and unemployment point to further employment gains in the months ahead as the economic recovery continues, although weaker growth momentum and the withdrawal of government support will narrow the scope of such gains relative to 2021.  However, Fitch Solutions believes upside pressures on nominal wages could intensify over the coming months as labour markets strengthen further.

(Sources: Reuters & Fitch Solutions)

• Oil edged higher on Thursday, bolstered by strong demand and concerns about short-term supply disruptions, even though U.S. crude inventories rose for the first time in eight weeks. 
• Brent crude futures were up 18 cents, or 0.2%, at $88.61 a barrel at 1:12 p.m. EST (1812 GMT). The global benchmark rose to $89.17 on Wednesday, its highest level since October 2014. 
• U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for February delivery were down 26 cents, or 0.3%, at $86.70 a barrel. The contract, which expires on Thursday, climbed to $87.91 on Wednesday. The more active March WTI contract was up 5 cents to $85.86. 
• Trading has been dominated by supply concerns, from short-term issues like a temporary halt to flows in an Iraq-to-Turkey pipeline to a consistent shortfall from OPEC+ members in reaching targeted supply increases.

(Source: Reuters)

• The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) completed the first pilot test of Central bank digital currency (CBDC) in early January. Following the tests, Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, spoke confidently about CBDC adoption in the country. He predicted that the majority of the Jamaican population would be quick to adopt the digital currency, with over 70% using the CBDC within five years. 
• BOJ has become a pioneer in CBDC with one of the first completed nationwide pilot projects in the world. After partnering with the Irish cryptography firm, eCurrency Mint, in March 2021, the central bank conducted an eight-month-long pilot. 
• Holness highlighted the benefits of CBDC, which include reduced banking costs and inclusivity, adding that the digital currency would ensure greater government accountability thanks to easier public resources tracking. 
• While admitting the initial challenges of a nationwide CBDC launch, which is aimed for the first quarter of 2022, Holness added that the government has to “figure out how to give people access to digital devices and the internet in general.” 
• BOJ aims to add two new wallet providers, alongside the National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited for its CBDC, followed by a nationwide rollout in the first quarter of this year. The central bank also plans to focus on interoperability by testing transactions between customers of different wallet providers.

(Sources: Cointelegraph.com & NCBCM Research)

• Fitch Solutions expects that the Dominican Republic will run narrower budget deficits in the quarters ahead as government revenues outpace spending growth. 
• The fiscal deficit is projected at 3.2% of GDP for 2022, from an estimated 3.6% in 2021 and 8.0% in 2020, largely due to a constructive growth outlook that will drive government revenue intake in the coming quarters. 
• Sustained economic growth will drive an 8.4% increase in public revenues in 2022. A steady recovery in tourism, combined with a tightening labour market, will drive revenue growth in the coming quarters. The economy is expected to grow 4.8%in 2022, supporting income growth and value added tax collection. 
• Public debt as a percentage of GDP is expected to fall, from an estimated 58.2% in 2021 to 57.9% in 2022 and 54.8% by 2026, as primary surpluses and sustained growth shrink the country's debt burden. 

 (Source: Fitch Solutions)

• Mia Mottley, who shot to international fame during the Cop26 climate talks and oversaw Barbados’s break with the Queen in November 2021, has won a second term as the Caribbean nation’s prime minister 
• The 56-year-old’s Barbados Labour party (BLP) won all 30 seats, up from 29 in 2018 in an election marred by complaints that thousands of Covid-positive Bajans were denied a vote. 
• Huge crowds celebrated into the early hours of Thursday outside BLP’s headquarters in the capital, Bridgetown, after Barbados’s midnight curfew was lifted for the night. 
• In her victory speech, Mottley said the landslide victory would allow her government to “lead the country first to safety and then to prosperity” and to prepare Barbados for the challenges “of the next 10 to 15 years”. These include climate change and antimicrobial resistance, she said. 
• The Prime Minister has pledged to create thousands of jobs in construction, technology and renewable energy to help the palm-fringed island emerge from the economic slump caused by the pandemic.

 (Sources: The Guardian & NCBCM Research)

• Canada's annual inflation rate accelerated in December to hit a 30-year high, data showed on Wednesday, bolstering expectations the central bank could hike interest rates as soon as next week. 
• Inflation rose to 4.8%, in line with analyst expectations and the highest print since it reached 5.5% in September 1991, Statistics Canada said. It was the ninth consecutive month in which headline inflation topped the Bank of Canada's 1% to 3% control range. 
• Core inflation measures all rose, with the closely watched CPI common measure near a 10-year high at 2.1%. That could fuel bets the central bank will start hiking interest rates next week, despite uncertainty around the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant. 
• "We have core inflation getting to the upper end of the (Bank of Canada) target range and I think that's going to spook them," said Derek Holt, vice president of capital markets economics at Scotiabank. “The worst thing they can do during the pandemic is to show they are not serious about containing cost of living pressures." 
• The Bank of Canada's benchmark rate has been at a record low 0.25% since the pandemic took hold in March 2020. It previously signaled it could tighten as early as April, but money markets see a roughly 70% chance of a hike on Jan. 26.

 (Source: Reuters)

• U.S. Federal Reserve officials, having plotted what seemed a clear battle plan against high inflation, must now contend with fresh signs the coronavirus is again slowing the economy as well as markets conspiring to tighten financial conditions faster than Fed policymakers may have hoped. 
• The combination of economic data pulling in one direction and investors in another could make the Fed's meeting next week unexpectedly complex as policymakers try to balance continued uncertainty over the health crisis against markets adjusting fast around projections the Fed may need to act even more aggressively against inflation. 
• At next week's two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday the challenge is to acknowledge the economic risks from the virus without diminishing the commitment to fight inflation, or, conversely, of coming off as so concerned about prices that investors expect even stricter policies to come. 
• Investors, so far, have taken the Fed's consensus around rate hikes into consideration. Interest rate futures markets reflect strong odds for as many as five rate increases this year of a quarter percentage point each, and real-world borrowing costs for consumers looking to buy a home, corporations aiming to raise capital and even the U.S. government have shot up as a consequence. U.S. stocks have fallen sharply since the start of the year as investors worry higher rates will hit technology and growth shares.

 (Source: Reuters)