BOJ cuts foreign exchange surrender requirement
Effective 25 October 2017, Bank of Jamaica will reduce the amount that authorised dealers and cambios are required to sell to the central bank from their daily purchases of foreign exchange. For both authorised dealers (ADs) and cambios, the amount required to be sold to the central bank will be reduced by 5.0 percentage points. ADs and cambios currently sell 25% and 20% respectively, of their daily foreign exchange purchases to the central bank in what is called a “surrender” arrangement under the public-sector entity (PSE) facility. The reduction will result in the PSE facility surrender requirement falling to 20%
Consumer Price Index – September 2017
The inflation rate for the month September 2017 was 0.7%, following an upward movement of 0.3% in August 2017. The division which recorded the highest movement for the month was ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ with a 2.6% growth, while the index for ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ advanced by 0.4%. STATIN reported that the increase in ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ was influenced mainly by an increase in electricity rates, while increases within the ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ division was due mainly to a 1.1% upward movement for the group ‘Vegetables and Starchy Foods’. Other notable