DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIST, Dr. Charles D. Douglas, is the new executive director of the island's productivity promotion organisation - The Jamaica Productivity Centre.
Speaking at an internal meeting at the North Street offices of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security on Tuesday, Labour Minister Horace W. Dalley said, "Dr. Douglas brings to the table more than three decades of solid experience and academic scholarship, which will certainly redound to the benefit of the centre's operation and to the nation as a whole, especially as we enter this challenging period of deepening regionalism in a globalised era."
Dr. Douglas holds a doctorate in development economics from the University of Florida, a master's degree in economics from the University of New England, New South Wales, Australia, and a foundation degree in economics from McGill University in Québec, Canada.
His tertiary level training began at the former Jamaica School of Agriculture with an honours diploma in general agriculture.
His career has taken him through several fields and three continents, with his most recent assignments including the posts of assistant director of the research and macroeconomic programming division at the Bank of Jamaica; international trade and policy analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy, and senior economist at the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute.
DEVELOP PRODUCTIVITY SENSITIVE CULTURE
The Jamaica Productivity Centre commenced operations on April 1, 2003, and has been charged with the responsibility of leading the transformation of the Jamaican culture to a more productivity-sensitive one, and with the task of facilitating productivity improvements at the national level. All of this is to ensure that Jamaica achieves world-class standards of productivity and competitiveness in the quest for sustainable socio-economic development.
Established jointly by the Jamaican Government, through its Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) and the Jamaica Employers' Federation (JEF), the centre demonstrates the global best practice of a tripartite approach to the administration of national labour forces as actively promoted by the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation.
In this spirit, Dr. Douglas is scheduled to make courtesy calls this week on the directorates of JEF and the JCTU.
On Monday, he held discussions with the director-general of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Sonia Jackson, exploring possible areas of collaboration, information sharing, and improving efficiencies in data collection and use across the entire public sector.
