Business View Caribbean | December 2019

9 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN DECEMBER 2019 JAMAICAN AUTHORITIES MOVING TO MAKE EXPORT OF GOODS AND SERVICES EASIER S tate Minister for Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Floyd Green, says Government is working to make the export of local goods and services easier, by reducing the associated costs and processes. “We are already in the process of removing licences and fees and steps where we see no value. Last week, we dealt with 26 of those [steps] that we are planning to get out of the system…and reduce the time it takes for us to get our products out of the country,” he said. Green was speaking at a signing ceremony for memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to facilitate the third instalment of the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) export development program, Export Max III on Tuesday. “We have over-bureaucratized our processes around trade for far too long in our country,” he lamented, as he explained that Government was intensifying efforts to rectify this hindrance to trade. He noted, for example, that it now takes 58 border control hours and costs about US$876 to export goods from Jamaica, adding that this is a “big disparity” compared to the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America where the average border control hours are about 61.9, and an average cost OPENING L INES