Recent Economic Growth and Rural Financial Markets in Jamaica: Analysis of Performance, Problems and Recommendations

摘要

Against a background analysis of the Jamaican economy's accelerating decline from 1965 to 1978, this paper studies the recent performance of Jamaica's rural financial markets (RFM's). From 1970 to 1977, credit increased rapidly, 6.7 fold, in nominal terms, but real growth was only 2.6 fold. Most of the increase came from new programs such as the Self-Supporting Farmer's Development Program (SSFDP) and the Jamaican Development Bank (JDB) with the help of foreign funds as inflation eroded the credit base in older domestic sources such as the Agricultural Credit Board (ACB). This rapid increase in credit within a declining economy has led to delinquency and arrears which have compromised future access to foreign funding sources, and to negative real interest rates which have benefitted large farmers while undermining the viability of the credit institutions themselves.