Jamaica’s central bank thinks the country’s economy is doing very well and it is using an instantly recognizable symbol of the island to get this message to the people: reggae music.
In the bank’s latest video, reggae artist Tarrus Riley uses his throaty vocals to praise low, stable and predictable inflation as being what the bass-line is to reggae music. “Gimme little one drop, let the bass-line roll and kotch, reggae music run the country,” Riley sings.
Just over seven years ago, the government’s debt was close to 150% of the country’s GDP, unemployment was over 15%, and economic growth was just under 1% annually. Now, the debt-to-GDP ratio is set to fall below 100% in this year’s budget, more people are employed than at any time in the country’s history, with unemployment at 8%, and there have been 18 consecutive quarters of growth.
Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah, director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the University of the West Indies, said music is a natural way to reach Jamaicans. According to King, Jamaica was among the worst-performing economies in the world. It was plagued with low productivity, long-term stagnation and crippling debt. Now the government has dramatically turned the economy around, he said, but people still need to be convinced that enduring a bit of pain to achieve overall economic growth is worth it.
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