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The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) – an agency of the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce – is encouraging Jamaican suppliers to consider collaborating more among themselves to fulfil large demands for goods and services within the tourism sector.  

“As businesses grow, other entities that can support those companies across Jamaica must also be growing. This can evolve to look like joint ventures and working together to fulfil orders,” JAMPRO President, Shullette Cox, noted while addressing stakeholders during a recent Tourism Linkages Forum, hosted by JAMPRO. 

President Cox informed stakeholders that the organization, in keeping with its current strategic business plan, will continue to place great emphasis on establishing new linkages and relationships between investors and MSMEs while strengthening existing relationships.  

The Ministry of Tourism recently reported that the industry earned $4.3 billion in 2023, however, approximately 43% of earnings were retained in Jamaica. 

“In 2022, the import bill for Jamaica was $7.74 billion while exports were $1.9 billion. That’s a trade gap of 5.8 billion and that’s the gap we need to close. While we continue to push export growth, through linkages, we want to see how we can reduce imports, of which food is a very big part at close to one billion,” President Cox stated.  

Against this backdrop, she informed stakeholders that food is the second highest expenditure for the industry, behind accommodation and as such, it presents opportunities for the over two hundred registered small farmers to consolidate and meet the demands for large-scale buyers such as hotels or agro-processors.  

In support of this, JAMPRO’s Investment and Linkages Division continues to work with clients and other industry stakeholders to facilitate local business-to-business forums with buyers and sellers of various products and services.  These forums are aimed at unearthing synergies and potential partnerships in a bid to enhance Jamaica’s competitiveness and ultimately stimulate the country’s economic growth. 

For the 2023/24 fiscal year, JAMPRO hosted four linkage forums which engaged over 80 suppliers and 41 buyers across various sectors. These forums resulted in 285 business-to-business meetings and over 100 new and existing opportunities being negotiated among the stakeholders.  

Carol Straw, Manager for the Tourism and Linkage Department (JAMPRO), which organizes these events on behalf of JAMPRO, explained that each forum is targeted to the needs of the buyers and suppliers.  

“We thought that it was important for both the buyers and the suppliers to understand each other’s issues, which is why we also incorporated a panel discussion during each of our forums, and out of that has come a number of viewpoints that I think can be addressed as we try to grow the collaboration between buyers and the suppliers,” she said.  

JAMPRO, as the leading government agency for promoting and facilitating exports and investments, remains committed to facilitating the strengthening of Jamaica’s linkages network through its various facilitation services and advocacy for several matters for improving Jamaica’s business environment.  

For more information contact info@dobusinessjamaica.com.