Since 2018, Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) monetary policy communication has been guided by our Bank of Jamaica Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Communication Strategy.

Also since 2018, BOJ publishes in advance its annual schedule of announcements of its monetary policy decisions. This public commitment to a schedule for announcing monetary policy decisions reflects BOJ’s efforts to improve the transparency of its monetary policy framework.

The announcements are in the form of press releases, which, at a minimum, indicate the policy decision along with the rationale for the decision. In addition, at BOJ’s quarterly press conferences to accompany the release of the  Quarterly Monetary Policy Report (QMPR), the Governor’s Speech addresses the most recent policy decision (usually published a day before the press conference) in its full context and the Governor and his executive team also take questions from the media.

The quarterly press conference is our flagship press conference while the QMPR is our flagship bit of monetary policy communication, but we stage other press conferences as needed and in addition to all the reports, press releases, statistics, notices, papers and speeches housed on this website, we also communicate on monetary policy in several other ways.

The Bank has an active social media presence on TwitterFacebook, and YouTube, and our communication and engagement on Twitter in particular has helped earn us the reputation as the “best central bank Twitter account”, in addition to “the coolest central bank in the world”. Significantly, most of the acclaimed communication on this Twitter account has been about monetary policy.

Our communication on Twitter has been highlighted by Twitter ‘threads’ reviewing Jamaica’s monthly inflation performance, like this one, https://bit.ly/3pdpwSI and special educational pieces on inflation, like this popular ‘wild west’ themed thread on inflation: https://bit.ly/3n7oBlR.

Twitter is also where we have introduced and showcased the most interesting central bank spokesperson in the world, our very own agent Croc O. Doyle, a monetary policy secret agent with a licence to target inflation.

Our Twitter account is where we premiered the world famous inflation videos from our award-winning inflation awareness campaign, but it is on our YouTube channel where these videos are housed together.

Also on the BOJ YouTube channel is our in-house produced Inflation Watch TV show, which features an in-depth look at Jamaica’s monthly inflation performance: https://bit.ly/2Nke7m2 .

Centrally Speaking, a Bank of Jamaica information feature which has appeared as a TV programme, a radio programme, and a newspaper feature, is about all aspects of the central bank in general, but naturally, it has featured episodes about monetary policy. The TV versions of the programme are also housed on our YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/3eJPARl.

BOJ’s other communication initiatives also include occasional media appearances and advertisements plus press releases, op ed articles and speeches by BOJ spokespersons, background briefings with journalists and sector interest groups, town hall type meetings and seminars with the general public, seminar and conference appearances within the economics community, and seminars we stage for high school economics students.

In February 2020, the initial phase of our inflation awareness communication campaign to accompany the introduction of inflation targeting claimed the global award of Best Communications Initiative in the annual central banking awards staged by Central Banking Publications.