- ROBERTSON
| KINGSTON, May 18 (JIS): |
 The
World Bank has come out in support of the ‘Doing Business in
2004 Report’, which has ranked Jamaica among the top 10 best
countries to do business in.Minister of Development, Dr. Paul Robertson who made the disclosure was responding to statements made by Opposition Spokesman on Industry and Commerce, Karl Samuda, who during his 2004/05 Sectoral Debate presentation, had stated that there was a disclaimer attached to the publication and questioned the creditability of the Report. Reading from an e-mailed response from Vandana Mathur, Vice President for Private Sector Development and Office of the Chief Economist at the World Bank on the creditability of the Report, Dr. Robertson said, “ the staff of the World Bank Group stand behind the data and analysis presented in the Doing Business Report.” Continuing, he said, “the statement you cited is a standard disclaimer used in all major World Bank Group Publications. The Doing Business Report is a new flagship publication of the Private Sector Vice President and is recognized as such and the Executive Board and Staff of the World Bank Group along with other annual publications”. Mr. Mathur in his e-mail further stated that the data in the Report are being used for monitoring progress in investment climate, setting targets and conditions for loan disbursements and research. Dr. Robertson who was speaking at the post-Cabinet press briefing on Monday, May 17 at Jamaica House said, “this document therefore seems to be a very vital document (the Report) to Jamaica’s future and part of our concern is we need to ‘ease-up’ on our country. We need to begin to accept that there are some positive things happening in the country”. He added that the Report was “indicative of progress and the World Bank by its response to us has confirmed that”. Supporting his colleague, Minister of Information, Senator Burchell Whiteman said that the Report depended on data gleaned from a variety of sources. He added: “they (the World Bank) obviously have confidence in their sources and the analysis that comes from the raw data that are provided, but in the end, there is a general disclaimer, which says that we are not able to guarantee that every single detail that is provided to us is something that we have personally checked on. But given the kind of context and the track record by the body that provide these data I am sure, as the writer of the letter said, he is able to stand by the Report.” |
