measures, is reflected in the fact that several individual jurisdictions have already subjected themselves to mutual evaluation examinations. for jamaica, this workshop is extremely timely. we will, within the next few months, undergo the full range of evaluations related to this subject area. the advantages that we expect to gain from this week ’ s training are therefore of significance to jamaica. however, our interests are not purely selfish, for jamaica is not only committed to the promotion of sound anti - money laundering measures within our borders, but we are also dedicated to ensuring that these measures are entrenched in the wider region. indeed, we have participating from within the public sector, six senior officers who are being trained as evaluators to take part in the peer assessment exercises of our caribbean neighbours. the support of cfatf members as indicated by the large representation of jurisdictions registered here today, further underlines the region ’ s commitment to adopting and applying new international standards and methodologies. with regard to jamaica, the government has made significant strides in amending and enacting appropriate legislation to prevent and detect money laundering and financial terrorism. from as far back as 1994, the drug offences ( forfeiture of proceeds ) act was passed. in 1996, we had the passage of the money laundering act ( mla ) and in 1997, the money laundering regulations. the mla was subsequently amended in 2002 to widen its scope to include money transfer and remittance agencies. further strengthening of the legislative framework continues. in december 2004, the senate approved amendments to the financial legislation, geared towards increasing the powers of disclosure of information to the financial investigations division of the ministry of finance, and to the sharing of information with overseas regulatory authorities. further amendments to the money laundering act and the financial investigations act are currently before a joint select committee of parliament. these amendments are aimed at fully aligning the country ’ s money laundering legislation with existing international guidelines. the developments in the legislative framework are being complemented by operational initiatives in various public sector organizations that are involved in different aspects of the measures to counter money laundering activities. as supervisor for the deposit - taking financial sector, the bank of jamaica first issued money laundering guidelines to its supervisees in 1988. since then, these guidelines have undergone substantial updates, the most recent being in 2004 when they were upgraded to take account of the ‘ eight special recommendations ’ on terrorist financing which were issued by the financial action task force ( fatf ) during 2003. these guidelines also give recognition to the best practice standards for

richard byles : update and outlook for the jamaican economy monetary policy press statement by mr richard byles, governor of the bank of jamaica, at the quarterly monetary policy report press conference, kingston, 21 february 2024. * * * introduction good morning and welcome to our first quarterly monetary policy report press conference for 2024. the year has started with inflation being above the bank's inflation target. statin reported last week that headline inflation at january 2024 was 7. 4 per cent, which is higher than the outturns for the previous three months, and above the bank's target of 4 to 6 per cent. core inflation, however, which excludes food and fuel prices from the consumer price index, was 5. 9 per cent, which is lower than the 7. 1 per cent recorded in january 2023. the inflation outturn at january is higher than the bank had projected in november 2023. as we communicated then, in the wake of the announcement by the minister of finance and the public service of the temporary two - phase reduction in jutc fares, we had estimated that the announced measure would have had a material impact on tempering the inflationary pressures of the ppv fare increases. inflation was consequently projected to generally remain within the target range, except for december 2023 and a few months in 2024. upon review, the bank now recognises that it had overestimated the impact of the reductions in jutc fares. the two - phase reduction is now estimated to have an offsetting impact of only 0. 2 percentage points on annual inflation, with the first reduction already evident in the cpi data for january 2024. notwithstanding the welcomed and offsetting reduction in jutc fares, the higher than targeted headline inflation at january continued to largely reflect the impact of the increase in the ppv fares as well as the effect of wage increases throughout the economy. the inflation outturn also reflected high agricultural food inflation which has been the result of the adverse weather conditions that affected the island in 2023. with this brief background, i will now speak in further detail about the bank's latest monetary policy considerations and decisions. monetary policy decision the bank's monetary policy committee ( mpc ) met on the 16th and the 19th of february and was advised that inflation is projected to remain above the bank's target range until june 2025, largely because of the impact of the temporary price shocks which i outlined earlier, including the projected impact of the second phase of