'Tap small investments'
Published:Monday | June 17, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Phillip Mascoll, an executive member of the Jamaican Diaspora Canada Foundation, has called for the Government to allow for an egalitarian approach to investment as it seeks to woo the diaspora.
"It must not only be the millionaire interests; you must look at everyone. It must be right across the board. Everybody has something to offer, take advantage of it, make it welcoming, they will come," Mascoll said.
His comments came last Friday during a Gleaner Editors' Forum held under the theme 'Engaging the Diaspora for Growth'.
Mascoll said the potential of the diaspora far exceeds the estimated US$2 billion in remittances received in Jamaica.
"Jamaica has an investment that is second to none," he argued.
"We have to facilitate Jamaican investments, small-scale investments in particular, from buying a house to buying a bandsaw for a furniture shop in Mocho," Mascoll reasoned.
He told the forum that it was critical that Jamaicans seek to tap those small investments, arguing that many potential investors are second- and third-generation Jamaicans who might be lost if the Government fails to reach out to them because they are not millionaires.
In the meantime, Valarie Steele, president of the Jamaican Diaspora Canada Foundation, said most Jamaicans living overseas, especially in Canada, walk around with a piece of the homeland in their hearts.
"Most Jamaicans have not really left, we just don't sleep here on a regular basis," Steele said.
"Regardless of how long we might have moved away, nuh weh nuh better 'dan yard'."
She told the forum that aside from business, there were other practical reasons for Jamaicans overseas to want to return home.
"One of the things that Jamaicans, as a whole, might not realise, because of the sting of racism and unfairness and inequality, our children won't have anywhere else to go. They will come here to marry, they will buy homes, they will follow us until we are in the grave," Steele said.