THE country's total central government debt stock increased by $2.3 billion between the end of March, 2018 and the end of December, 2018, according to the Fiscal Policy Paper (FPP) tabled in the House of Representatives on Thursday. According to the FPP, the stock of central government debt at the end of the third quarter [...]

PART-time lecturer at the University of Technology, Jamaica Lloyd Wint has made an appeal for the minimum 20 per cent issue of shares to the public to be raised to 30 per cent for companies looking to list on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock exchange. His appeal follows a number of oversubscribed initial [...]

Texaco Jamaica has hit its centenary, but has not lost its vigour. The petroleum marketing company whose top spot in the gas retail market is under threat from acquisitive French rival Total Jamaica, says it has a plan to maintain its edge. GB Energy Jamaica-Texaco CEO Mauricio Pulido, speaking with the Financial Gleaner on Tuesday, [...]

Dr Wayne Henry, director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, responds to questions from journalists after delivering a review of the October to December 2018 quarter on Wednesday. The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) is projecting a 1.5 to 2.5 per cent growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) for the January to March [...]

The Jamaican economy experienced real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 1.8 per cent for the 2018 calendar year, according to Dr Wayne Henry, director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ). Speaking at a PIOJ quarterly press briefing today Henry said that this represents the sixth consecutive year of real GDP growth. Real [...]

There was an increase in profit at General Accident Insurance Company for the year ended December 31. It amounted to $295 million up from $221 million in 2017. General Accident says during the year, gross written premium grew to $8.7 billion, a 23 per cent increase over the previous year. It reported that premium volume [...]

The Government will this year strengthen the operational and technological capacity of the Financial Services Commission (FSC) to undertake risk-based supervision across the industries it supervises. A total of $13.4 million has been earmarked for this undertaking in the 2019/20 Estimates of Expenditure. The sectors that will be directly impacted include insurance, pensions and securities. [...]

In the last decade, Jamaica has borrowed from China to finance badly needed infrastructure and there has been foreign direct investment (FDI) by Chinese companies in the bauxite and sugar industries. These developments have ignited a controversy about whether Jamaica is losing what little economic sovereignty it has. Some have called the Chinese the new [...]

Jamaica is experiencing a surge in the demand for villa rentals for 2019, according to luxury villa rental company Exceptional Villas. The company, which also owns Villas Barbados and Dream Ireland, states that the “unprecedented increase in advance bookings for 2019” follows on the heels of a 35 per cent increase in online villa bookings [...]

This year's staging of The Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival (SOBEWFF) will feature an event on Friday, February 22 called “Taste of Jamaica” which is to be dedicated to Jamaican cuisine. The festival which runs from February 20 – 24 is hosted in the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach [...]