Debt Payment Not an Issue for Jamaica

Jamaican bondholders should not worry about debt payment, despite its macroeconomic and fiscal woes. “Their debt management has been pretty good for the last couple of years,” says Carl Ross, managing director at Oppenheimer. “They’ll be fine,” he adds, noting Jamaica will consider multilateral and bi-lateral debt options as well as a private placement should the public markets not be there. In a worst case scenario, Jamaica would be willing to pay down the maturity with international reserves, says Ross. Jamaica’s reserves stood at over $2bn earlier this year.