The IMF team arrived yesterday afternoon and immediately moved to Jamaica House for talks with Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Finance Minister Audley Shaw.

The team is scheduled to spend the rest of this week in discussions with the Government and public-sector officials.

Government officials said the IMF team was to look at the numbers presented by local authorities and examine the programmes being proposed by the Government to determine if they are consistent with the agreed medium-term goals.

Areas of strengthening

Already the IMF has indicated three areas that it would like to see strengthened as part of a foundation for medium-term sustainability.

According to Finance Minister Audley Shaw, the IMF wants to see a consolidation of public enterprises to minimise the impact of these entities on the accumulation of debt.

The fund has also demanded the formulation of a borrowing strategy for the medium term that should relieve the country's extraordinarily high debt-service burden.

Shaw also claimed that the IMF wants measures to be implemented towards limiting the size of future deficits.

"These will include legislating guidelines for fiscal respons-ibility, streamlining the civil service and enhancing tax administration," Shaw said.

The Government is trying to complete the preparatory work and documentation by mid-August, and make a formal submission for a US$1.2 billion standby arrangement to the executive board of the IMF when it resumes in September.