experience and capabilities to discharge the functions of oversight and accountability successfully. importantly, the tenure of board members will be longer than the governor's term of appointment. in addition, many of the powers currently vested in the person of the governor will be divested to, or shared with, the board and the statutory committees, such as the monetary policy committee, similar to the leading central banks in advanced and emerging economies. and the bank will be prohibited from providing credit to the government, except in times of declared national emergency. another important feature will be a redefinition of capital to establish a dynamic capital framework and this will be accompanied by an injection of capital that will ensure that 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches the bank has the financial capacity to pursue its mandate without recourse to the government's budget. for the first time in decades, jamaica will have an adequately capitalised central bank and, for the first time in our history, it will have provisions in place that are designed to maintain capital adequacy into the future. so, ladies and gentlemen, in 2013 jamaica took on and won the short - term battle for macroeconomic stability. this story is, by now, well known. by 2017, jamaica proved that it has been winning the medium - term war for macroeconomic stability with a demonstrably mature approach to fiscal and monetary management. jamaica is now emerging from those battles and is assembling the long - term institutional and legislative platform that will allow jamaica to shed these metaphors of war, conflict and struggle in macroeconomic management and achieve the transition from surviving to thriving. that is the destination that the country is aiming for with bank of jamaica modernisation and independence. thank you. 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches

brian wynter : the year ahead – the view from the bank address by mr brian wynter, governor of the bank of jamaica, to the american chamber of commerce ( amcham ) forum, kingston, 25 march 2011. * * * ladies and gentlemen : for as long as most of us can remember, jamaica has been hamstrung by persistent macroeconomic problems. they are well - known but they bear repetition : low gdp growth, adverse fiscal and debt dynamics and the related unsustainable imbalances. these problems were exacerbated by the global economic and financial crises which commenced in 2008. in order to break this cycle, the country took some bold steps in 2010 which have so far resulted in successes in key performance indicators. in january 2010, the government successfully negotiated the jamaica debt exchange ( “ jdx ” ) with local investors resulting in an astonishing rate of participation. this paved the way for the signing of a stand - by arrangement with the international monetary fund ( “ imfsba ” ) which entailed jamaica giving a commitment to an economic path and a set of reforms that would establish and maintain the fundamentals that are conducive to sustainable growth and development. the key objectives of the resulting medium - term programme are to set jamaica ’ s debt to gdp ratio on a downward trajectory, entrench fiscal discipline and accountability and raise the growth rate of real gdp. in this context, monetary policy is aimed at bringing inflation down to mid - single digit levels and maintaining it there for the mediumterm in the context of a flexible exchange rate. these commitments enabled the government to access unprecedented levels of funding from the multilateral financial institutions. a combined total of us $ 2. 4 billion, amounting to about 20 per cent of gdp, is expected to be received by jamaica over the programme ’ s twoyear period to provide budgetary support and meet balance of payments needs. so, what is the progress to date? well, so far we have seen the materialisation of a number of the goals envisioned by the medium - term programme. it was envisioned that the fiscal policy strategy and the resulting stable medium - term outlook would create the conditions for substantial and sustained reductions in interest rates. this would be achieved by consolidating public finances which would set the stage for lower deficits and progressively lower financing needs. and, indeed, this has been the result. for fiscal year 2011 / 12, we are expecting that the process of fiscal