Jamaica’s Net International Reserves (NIR) lost another 10% in January 2013 after the small spike to end 2012. The nation’s international savings now stands at just over US$1.009 Billion. This is just enough cash to cover 12.5 weeks of Goods & Services Imports. The last time we saw this low a level of NIR was January 2001 when the number was US$931 Million.
Although we are nowhere near to the days of the early to mid 1990s when the NIR was negative, the chart below shows a worrying continuous downward trend…
Source: Bank Of Jamaica
See accompanying Motion Chart here
While the US$ dollar selling rate trends up…
Source: Bank Of Jamaica
