Prepared for Seminar on “Ideas and Innovation for Change”
Sponsored by Poltical Reform, Development and Innovation Task Force
Kingston, July 17, 1999

There has been no significant growth in the Jamaican economy since 1975. In the early 1990s PC income had probably not attained the level of 20 years before. The latest ESSJ shows that real PC GDP in 1998 was about 6 percent below 1990.

This stagnation followed two decades of economic expansion. Before that the economy had been stagnating. For the 20th century as a whole the Jamaican economy has experienced about 20 years of rapid growth beginning in 1953, and 80 years of slow growth or outright stagnation. This will have to change.

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