Above: PM Portia Simpson Miller in China

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaica and China have signed four agreements totaling “millions of dollars,” Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced this week.

Simpson Miller is on an official visit to China this week.

The primary agreement is a preferential loan for the Major Infrastructure Development Project, which is a new iteration of what was formerly the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme.

The others include letters of agreement on economic and technical cooperation, letters of exchange on a feasibility study on a teaching building for the Confucius Institue and an agreement to build two new early-childhood schools.

The MIDP will reportedly fund the rehabilitation of “several hundred kilometres of roadway,” according to the Prime Minister’s office and the completion of projects started under the JDIP.

Under the economic agreement, China will aid Jamaica with about $16 million, which will be used for projects “to be mutually agreed on through consultations between the two countries.”

“Detailed accounting procedures for the disbursement of funds concerning the implementation of the agreement shall be settled between the Accountant General’s Department of the Ministry of Finance and Planning of Jamaica and the China Development Bank,” the agreement states.