Hill urges manufacturers to target regional market

Chief executive officer of the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica, Aubyn Hill, has challenged Jamaican manufacturers, including agro-processors, to explore new strategies in their bid to access regional and international export markets.

His call has come in the light of trade figures for the first quarter of the year, which suggest that Jamaica's galloping trade deficit with its regional partners is not likely to check anytime soon. For the first four months of the year, Jamaica spent US$246-million, reflecting a 12 per cent increase over the corresponding period or 13 times the amount of money CARICOM countries spent on Jamaican goods and services.

One suggestion the government consultant had for local entrepreneurs is that they invest in local value added agricultural goods which are cleaned, packaged, processed or otherwise refined, therefore, attracting higher prices. He pointed to the benefits now being enjoyed by businesses in Trinidad and Tobago, which in the 1990s retooled their operations, and have subsequently driven local products, such as bullas and cupcakes off the shelves of Jamaican supermarkets.

Still, this might not be enough to ensure access to even some of the regional countries whose products continue to flood the Jamaican market. According to the former banker, the effective use of non-tariff barriers to legally block the importation of Jamaican goods is a measure that might be worthy of emulation.

"We must learn quickly from the Japanese, what they learnt the hard way from the French," he told Wednesday's agricultural symposium, hosted by the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) on the UWI, Mona campus. He went on to explain the deceptive countermeasure used by France in the 1980s after Japan refused to allow the importation of certain French goods. It simply insisted that all Japanese television being imported must enter the country via one small port. What the Japanese did not know was the nondescript landlocked port was at least 450 kilometres from the sea.

"Well let me tell you something. In a short while, the Japanese allowed in all the formerly unacceptably French goods," he said while speaking on the topic 'private sector-led agriculture'.

—Christopher Serju