By Sherika Hall
KINGSTON, Jamaica, (JIS) – Minister of industry, investment and commerce, Senator Aubyn Hill, will head Jamaica’s 60-member delegation to Guyana from January 23 to 28 for a second trade mission.
The visit will focus on strengthening previously established partnerships with Guyanese businesses as well as increasing trade and investment opportunities between the two countries.
Addressing a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank on Thursday (January 12), Senator Hill shared that he foresees “Jamaica and Guyana building formidable business, commercial and even broader political arrangements. Jamaica is very optimistic about this trade mission, and I believe that it will help us to cement those original arrangements we made,” he added. “I see the relationship that we are seeking to build with Guyana as a vital one [especially] for Jamaican construction companies,” he added.
President (Acting) of the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), Shullette Cox, told JIS News that “with the economic boom that is coming to Guyana, there is going to be heavy demand for construction, not only for services but also supplies, and so we have a couple of companies from the sector that will be making the trip with us”.
Companies within the banking and finance sectors will be a part of the local delegation.
“Very related to development and infrastructure will be the need to capitalise on those types of projects, and Jamaican financial institutions are going to be positioned at the forefront of those engagements,” Cox pointed out. The various sectors that will be participating in the mission, “the greatest interest that we have seen is in our technology sector or what we call our Global Digital Services Sector. “With export being a primary focus for JAMPRO, one of the important inroads that we want to make in Guyana is to expose our exporters, both on the manufacturing and agricultural side, to new buyers and new distributors in the Guyanese market,” Cox said.
Speaking about the role of JAMPRO on this mission, she explained that “we are going there to establish business relationships and to secure export contracts in both goods and services. As a government entity, we also reinforce the relationship between the Governments of Jamaica and Guyana, and we are looking forward to achieving and coming back to report on all of the successes coming out of those discussions.”
For his part, chief executive officer at Konnexx Services Limited, Dean Nevers, shared that since participating in the first mission to Guyana, which took place in October 2022, his company, which is an industry leader in the Caribbean in the field of telecommunications engineering, has begun operations in Guyana.
“The trip to Guyana for many of the first-time visitors was very promising, and we actually took up the opportunity through the networking afforded to us by the JAMPRO team. Since then, we have established our operations in Guyana, and we have begun working there,” he told JIS News.
Nevers noted that the mission plays an important role in the export of Jamaica’s technical services across the Caribbean.
“Jamaicans are leaders in this sector, and I think it would help in terms of reducing our unemployment rate if we look at export not just for goods but for services. As leaders in the sector, we are ready and we are looking forward to further opportunities being extended to us by Senator Hill and his team on this second trade mission,” he said.
The week-long mission will see approximately 100 business-to-business meetings that will drive cross-border transactions in both investments and trade, which will be mutually beneficial to Guyana and Jamaica.
This trade mission is part of a wider initiative being led by Senator Hill to increase opportunities for Jamaican businesses to substantially grow exports.
The mission is the first of many that have been planned for this calendar year.
