Despite fall in economy by 8.3 percent, Jamaica still displays the sign of fiscal recovery

Jamaica: As we all know that the economy of Jamaica was declined by 8.3 percent for the October to December 2020 quarter as compared to 2019, Jamaica still continues to demonstrate signs of recovering from the fallout of the outcome induced by the exogenous pandemic -Coronavirus.

This analysis, as mentioned above, is based on the examination of the latest critical indicators engaged by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

STATIN’s digital quarterly announcement on Thursday (April 15), Director General Carol Coy, announced: “the December 2020 quarter contraction was fundamentally due to an 11.1 percent drop in the services industry.”

Ms Coy stated, however, that the goods-producing sector grew by 0.2 per cent, adding that when contrasted with the July to September 2020 quarter, the economy expanded by 0.9 percent during the evaluation period.

“A continuation of the third quarter’s extension relative to the second (April to June) quarter of 2020,” she stated.

STATIN designated that despite the economy declining by 10.7 per cent in the September 2020 quarter, this remained an 8.3 percentage point gain on the out-turn for the prior period.

The Director-General designated that the figure for December 2020, like the early period, was affected by the relaxation of some of the standards established by the Administration since March 2020 to limit the scope of COVID-19.

Ms Coy stated all except one of the five services sectors or subsectors declined during the review period. The most significant declines were registered by hotels & restaurants, down 53.8 percent; transport, accommodation and communication, dropping 10.4 percent; wholesale and retail-trade, repairs, fitting of machinery and equipment, down 8.8 percent; and the other services, comprehensive of appointments in the creative industries, falling 21.6 percent.

Producers of administration services, with a 0.2 percent out-turn, was the individual subsector reporting growth.

Ms Coy announced two of the four goods-producing trades, construction and mining and quarrying, grew by 6.3 percent.

However, she also stated that agriculture, forestry and fishing, and manufacturing declined by 7.2 and 0.4 percent sequentially, relative to 2019, while noting that the drop in the former primarily followed from heavy rainfall in October and November.

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