THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on December 3 in the years identified:

1970:Edward Seaga announces that Jamaica is to get yet another commercial bank in which there will be Jamaican participation in the ownership. Canada’s largest bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, with assets in excess of CAD$11 billion, will shortly establish a new Jamaican company, to be 51 per cent locally owned in five years. Seaga says the new bank is expected to be incorporated during the first half of 1971, as soon as technical and legal problems can be worked out.

1989: More attention should be paid to the suffering of the poor within the Jamaican society, says Garnett Roper, pastor of The First Missionary Church, addressing a church service held to launch National Journalism Week on East Street in Kingston. 1993:Omar Davies, who has been carrying out the duties of minister of finance since June 1993, is officially sworn into office at a brief King’s House ceremony. The ceremony is presided over by Governor General Sir Howard Cooke. Sir Howard urges the new finance minister to remember that “when much is given to anyone, much is expected”.

1993: Omar Davies announces in his first press briefing as finance minister that Jamaica passes the September quarterly test set by the International Monetary Fund. He says the island is successful in all aspects of the Fund’s test, including the net international reserves, the net domestic assets and those related to the fiscal budget.