Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Myers

Jamaica Chamber of Commerce president Mark Myers believes the country might have buried itself in more debt by playing co-hosts to Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007.

The tournament, which concluded in April, forced the Jamaican government to borrow $9 billion from the Chinese government to prepare the country for hosting the tournament, a figure, which Myers notes, was projected at US$100 million or J$6.8 billion during the initial stages of planning. The major portion of the total $9 billion cost was spent on the construction of the Trelawny multi-purpose stadium and the renovation of the Sabina Park cricket ground in Kingston.

"Because a large portion of that money was borrowed to build the Trelawny stadium, we couldn't have borrowed that money to fix roads and hospitals or anything else," argues Myers. "The question on the table is whether we should have borrowed the money at all at this point in time. Frankly speaking, we don't think we needed to have taken on that additional debt," he continues.

Myers surmises that the country might also have lost some of the non-traditional visitors it expected because of the CARICOM visa regime which came on stream only a few weeks before the cricket tournament was slated to begin. This might have been further complicated by the early demise of teams such as India and Pakistan.

"Those two non-traditional markets, Pakistan and India in particular, basically were cut out of the CWC," says Myers. He points out too that Panamanians, who did regular business with Jamaica, were also prevented from doing usual business with the island during the staging of the tournament because of the imposition of the visa.

"They represented a lot of business for Jamaica because they represent most of the brands on a global basis," says Myers. "They travel three days a week and all of a sudden they needed another visa to come to Jamaica because of CWC, because of the security issues which required them to give up their passports for four weeks. They can't afford to do that! They travel all over the globe," states the JCC head.

He says the visitors that were expected to the island were also far below projections, based on match attendance and hotel occupancy alone. Some 100,000 visitors were projected, but closer to the tournament, that figure was dropped to a meagre 13,000. To date, no indication has been given by the Government as to how many visitors came during CWC 2007.

overwhelming activity

"You didn't see this overwhelming activity anywhere in Jamaica - it certainly wasn't in Kingston," says Myers, adding that several business activities created to benefit from the World Cup spin-off were forced to close down due to the less-than-projected market turnout.

"A lot of the vendors are now in a tight spot because they borrowed money and the market didn't show up," reports Myers.

But despite the negative spin-off, Myers says that the tournament gave Jamaica a chance to showcase to the world that it can put on a good show, noting that the tournament itself ran smoothly, from opening ceremony to matches.

"So we can put on world-class events; the question is how much do we need to invest to get that?"

Going forward, he suggests Government needs to ponder how it will leverage the investments it has made. He says the Trelawny stadium, for example, needs to be managed and events found for the stadium to host, particularly events that will attract international visitors.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com