50 Business View Caribbean - Nov 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 relationships 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 Commerce
in the past had been very inward looking as far as the
economy is concerned, because that is how our mem-
bers were operating. A lot of our companies in Jamaica
only exported to the traditional markets – the United
States, Canada and the United Kingdom and Europe –
and those are the countries that the country has had
great relations with for many years, from before inde-
pendence 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
billion U.S. dollars. Our main foreign exchange earn-
ings are remittances, tourism and traditional and non-
traditional 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
manufactured goods. However, that comes to about 5
billion U.S. dollars a year, but our import bill is between
6.5 and 7 billion a year, and we have a trade deficit of
JAMAICA
