In the last monetary policy decision of Richard Byles’s near seven-year governorship, the Bank of Jamaica held its benchmark rate at 5.50 per cent. The hold reads as caution; the data beneath it reads as warning — and the warning is now his successor’s to heed.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Bank of Jamaica’s Monetary Policy Committee did the predictable thing on 29 June. It did nothing.After meetings on 25 and 26 June, the Committee announced it would hold the policy rate — the interest paid to deposit-taking institutions on their current account balances at the central bank — at 5.50 per cent, and continue to defend relative stability in the foreign exchange market.