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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 />

29

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