Moody’s delivers a staggering assessment: Hurricane Melissa’s economic impact could exceed US$20 billion — the equivalent of Jamaica’s entire annual GDP — far surpassing initial government estimates and signalling a long, costly recovery.
NEARLY a week after Hurricane Melissa delivered a devastating hit to western Jamaica, Moody’s is estimating that economic losses from the storm could exceed US$20 billion or $3.20 trillion, the value of Jamaica’s total output or gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024. This dwarfs the government’s initial preliminary estimate of US$6-7 billion, signaling a far graver economic crisis than first anticipated.
Moody’s RMS™ Event Response Services published the update on Thursday in which it highlighted that, beyond the property and infrastructure damage, economic losses would be compounded by the interruption to commerce from the Category Five storm.
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