Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) Governor Richard Byles says the bank is committed to returning inflation to 4-6 percent by next year September. However, he says the ongoing war in Ukraine has sent inflation to higher-than-projected heights which the bank has had to address using several stringent measures. He was addressing Parliament’s Standing Finance Committee on Wednesday.
Governor Byles says as of October 2022 headline inflation was at 9.9 per cent, trending higher than the bank’s projected upper limit of 6 per cent. Noting Jamaica’s main spending partners engaged in monetary tightening which could see the foreign exchange rate depreciating swiftly and more capital outflows without correctly aligned domestic policies. Byles says the BOJ took a three-pronged approach to inflation.
He notes this would also help to manage aggregate spending in the economy among other cushioning measures which he says have not all been swiftly passed on to customers by some deposit-taking entities.
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