Jamaica has paid a heavy price for its botched financial sector
liberalization of the 1990s. Omar Davies, Jamaica's finance
minister, estimates the 1997 banking crisis cost the country J$125
billion ($2.5 billion). Now, nearly six years later, the crisis is
finally coming to a close.
The Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac), which the
government set up in 1997 to consolidate Jamaica's banks, sold the
Jamaican government's 75% stake in National Commercial Bank of
Jamaica to Canadian fund manager AIC Limited in January for J$6
billion ($175 million). Patrick Hylton, managing director of
Finsac, says the organization will cease to exist at the end of
this year.
The government has pumped around $411 million into NCB
Group since 1997, spending $285 million to inject liquidity into
the bank and buying its...
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