74 Business View Caribbean - Dec 2014
Talking Business:
Francis Kennedy
30 minutes with the president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce
BUSINESS VIEW: It seems a large part of what the
chamber has been doing recently is promoting rela-
tionships between Jamaica and the U.S., particularly
South Florida. Is that your target area? Or what is
your agenda day-to-day?
FRANCIS KENNEDY:
The Jamaica Chamber of Com-
merce in the past had been very inward looking as far
as the economy is concerned, because that is how our
members were operating. A lot of our companies in Ja-
maica only exported to the traditional markets – the
United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and Eu-
rope – and those are the countries that the country has
had great relations with for many years, from before in-
dependence in 1962. However, what has happened is,
in order for us to survive as a country, we need to export
more.
We have a balance of payments deficit of about 2.9 bil-
lion U.S. dollars. Our main foreign exchange earnings
are remittances, tourism and traditional and non-tradi-
tional exports. Traditional exports are the bulk of this,
like sugar and cocoa and coffee and that type of thing,
and the non-traditional are processed foods and manu-
