Above: IDB headquarters in Washington, DC

The Caribbean will see a nearly $5 billion jump in annual financing from the Inter-American Development Bank.

Funding for the region has moved from $7 billion to $12 billion.

According to Ancile Brewster, the IDB’s representative in Jamaica, regional integration and private sector development in the Caribbean are among the areas expected to be earmarked for financing from the institution’s Ninth Capital Replenishment.

Brewster said the “struggle for economic growth” has been pronounced in Jamaica and around the region in the last decade, and particularly in the last four years.

The factors militating against economic growth, like growing globalization and the small size of regional economies, create a need for a greater assessment of the role commercial cooperation can play in developing the region’s economies, markets and production capacities.

–Jamaica Information Service