PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica
PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica
PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica
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Chapter 3<br />
________________<br />
From the IMF Programme to Private-Sector-Led <strong>Growth</strong><br />
within Vision 2030 <strong>Jamaica</strong> 7<br />
Dr. Gladstone Hutchinson<br />
Director General, <strong>PIOJ</strong><br />
“The private sector is where much <strong>of</strong> our focus is going to have to be to meet the<br />
overarching challenge <strong>of</strong> … human development. <strong>Growth</strong>, jobs and opportunity belong<br />
there [and] not in the gift <strong>of</strong> government”. Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator, UNDP<br />
1.0 Introduction<br />
To grow a developing economy through a reduction in Government’s fiscal intervention<br />
is tricky business. Add to it the layers <strong>of</strong> complication brought on by a deep world<br />
recession and the internal misalignment <strong>of</strong> economic resources and history <strong>of</strong> sub-optimal<br />
public policy in <strong>Jamaica</strong>, and we are left with the narrowest and messiest <strong>of</strong> paths to<br />
success. Yet it is abundantly clear that this transformation is doable.<br />
My argument is that this success rests squarely on whether you the private sector can<br />
discover resilience, robustness and elasticity in entrepreneurship and business<br />
development.<br />
The fact is that state-dominated and directed management <strong>of</strong> economic resources as a<br />
paradigm for progress in economic and social well-being is largely discredited. It is and<br />
was always a bad idea. Globalization and technological progress and their demands that<br />
modern economies be agile, responsive and knowledge-based, are furthering the demise<br />
<strong>of</strong> this idea.<br />
I need not do any telling to this group about the most basic <strong>of</strong> necessary conditions<br />
underlying our new economic paradigm and reform effort. If markets, and you the<br />
private sector, are not fully convinced that our country is irreversibly committed to this<br />
new private sector led economic paradigm, then the transformation will be a failure. In<br />
my presentation, I will discuss the evidence on this very point, and its implications.<br />
7 Copy edited and re-formatted text <strong>of</strong> Presentation to The Chairman’s Club Forum - Private Sector<br />
Organization <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jamaica</strong>, September 28, 2010.<br />
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