64 June 2016 - Business View Caribbean
away as Chile; we are making cement out of the lime-
stone, locally, and that cement has penetrated most
of the region.”
Edwards stresses that the two Divisions – Investment
and Export – work in tandem. “If you look at coffee
and cocoa, these are areas where we’re not producing
enough. Although we have very fine quality products,
we’re not producing enough to satisfy the demand in
the international market. So, these are areas where
we are encouraging investment to expand into export.
There is a very strong link between the export and in-
vestment divisions, because a lot of what we do as a
country would require investment to facilitate growth.”
JAMPRO’s third Division, Corporate Development and
Competitiveness, evaluates the business environment
and how it can be improved and modernized to make
doing business easier for the private sector. Edwards
explains the Division’s importance to JAMPRO’s col-
laboration with other government bodies: “We liaise
with various government agencies and ministries to
improve legislation, and, in many cases, enact new
legislation. For example, there are some new indus-
tries that we are targeting, such as medical tourism,
cannabis, and time share, for instance, that needed
changes in legislation to be enacted. We look at how
we can create legislation and the right policy environ-
ment to attract investments into those industries.”
The Division also looks at the international rankings of
Jamaica’s performance with a series of international
reports such as the Global Competitiveness Report,
the Doing Business Report of the World Bank, and
various indices, such as the Logistics Performance In-
dex. JAMPRO directly targets the components of those
indices to see how Jamaica can improve its ranking,
internationally.
In order to fulfill its mission with its vast range of stake-
holders, JAMPRO regularly collaborates with organiza-
tions whose own missions are closely aligned, includ-
ing the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) and the
Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), among others.
Because it reports to the Ministry of Economic Growth
and Job Creation, it also has weekly meetings with the
Minister and his team.
“In addition,” says Edwards, “we have what is called
the National Competitiveness Council, which is chaired
by the Minister. And that Council really brings together
a wide range of government agencies which are all in-
