The Government is trumpeting what it describes as the best report on the Jamaican economy, done by officials of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in nearly 20 years.

A preliminary report on the performance of the economy over the last year was on Friday presented by the IMF team to Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Omar Davies.

Dr. Davies, who made a presentation to Cabinet yesterday, told his colleagues that the report was the "most positive" he had seen from the IMF in 18 years, which covered both his tenure as head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) for four years and as finance minister.

Comprehensive report

He will make a comprehensive report to Parliament on the IMF's report when he tables the First Supplementary Estimates on February 27.

The Supplementary Estimates for fiscal year 2006/2007, were approved on Monday by Cabinet.

Following its tabling, leader of government business in the House of Representatives, Dr. Peter Phillips, will convene a meeting of the finance committee on March 6, after which the House will debate the estimates.

In its last staff review of the island under its intensified surveillance project published September last year, the IMF had given a favourable short-term macroeconomic outlook for the country.

Strong performances

At the time of the last report, the IMF noted that despite improvements in terms of large-scale hotel and infrastructure investment projects and a buoyant tourism sector, the country remained vulnerable, as it had failed to achieve several perfor-mance targets.

Last Thursday, the PIOJ reported that the Jamaican economy continued to show "solid signs of growth" for the October to December quarter.

It pointed to a 2.7 per cent growth in real gross domestic product, when compared with the corresponding period of 2005. Strong performances were recorded in the agriculture, mining and quarrying and electricity and water sectors.

However, the manufacturing sector declined during the period under review.