Finance Minister Audley Shaw has left the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) annual general meeting in Turkey with a US$15-million loan from the World Bank and an encouraging word on Jamaica's plan to resume a borrowing agreement with the fund.

"Minister Shaw is very confident about the discussions which have been taking place at the highest level over there, and we still are looking forward to having an inked agreement by November 2009," Daryl Vaz, the minister responsible for information, told journalists during yesterday's post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House.

"The commitment of the Government is to keep you fully informed of these negotiations right until the ink is dry," Vaz added.

Shaw is slated to travel to Spain today for a meeting of the Committee of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), before returning home to complete the medium-term programme and the letter of intent to the fund.

The World Bank and the IDB are expected to be key to Jamaica's borrowing plans after the IMF stand-by agreement is signed.

Yesterday, Shaw thanked the World Bank for the US$15-million loan, which is for the Rural Economic Development Initiative.

This is aimed at improving market access for micro and small-scale rural agricultural producers and local tourism product and service providers.

In his message to the World Bank, Shaw pointed to the impact of the global economic recession on Jamaica and urged the bank to intensify its effort to work with the country to find innovative solutions to its high indebtedness.

However, the World Bank loan was secondary to Shaw's main purpose in Turkey, where he met with senior IMF officials for detailed technical discussions on Jamaica's medium-term programme in support of a proposed US$1.2-billion stand-by agreement with the fund.

- A. H.