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Jamaican businesses acquire valuable financial lessons at ExportPlus’ technical assistance session

Kingston, Jamaica – Jamaican Exporters in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector received valuable information on the key area of ‘Financing for Innovative Export Projects’ during the first technical assistance session of the ExportPlus programme being facilitated by JAMPRO in partnership with the IDB’s FINPYME initiative held at the offices of JAMPRO on Tuesday, November 13th.

The technical assistance session was well attended by members of the SME community and was moderated by Professor Rosalea Hamilton.

Presentations were given on ‘Innovating for Sustainability and Competitiveness’ by Dr. Horace Williams, ‘Developing a Winning Financial Proposal’ by Mr. Rennie Clarke of NCB, ‘Group Presentations & Feedback’ from JAMPRO’s Marlene Porter, ‘Funding Windows for SMEs’ presented by Valerie Crawford of the EXIM Bank and a closing presentation by Professor Hamilton on ‘Pitfalls to Avoid in Financing Innovations’.

Professor Hamilton in her opening remarks lauded the importance of the export sector to the future development of the country saying, “Exporters are the saviors of Jamaica.” To reinforce the role of banks and credit unions as facilitators in the export sector, members of financial institutions such as the Exim Bank, Pan Caribbean, Scotia Bank Jamaica, National Commercial Bank and the First Heritage Cooperative Credit Union were all in attendance.


Professor Rosalea Hamilton expresses her views on financing for innovative export projects to JAMPRO’s Manager of Export Developmen Marlene Porter during the first technical assistance session of the ExportPlus programme.

During the session the attendees were taken through the steps of preparing financial proposals and reminded how critical adequate record keeping is needed when applying for financing. The exporters also had the opportunity to interact with the financial institutions and make suggestions on how the banks and credit unions can better serve the export community.

An exporter who attended the technical assistance session commented, “Overall it was an excellent session, let’s all make these talks and discussions materialize. Let’s pull the country out of this ditch.” Another exporter believed it was a good idea to have exporters meet with financial institutions and they learnt a number of lessons from the session. An attendee added, “If the banks and credit unions live up to what they say then this session will serve a purpose.”


Members of the export community were involved in various group sessions throughout the first technical assistance session of the ExportPlus programme which focused on the theme ‘Financing for Innovative Export Projects’.

JAMPRO, the national trade and investment agency, has been actively promoting and implementing the ExportPlus Programme which is being managed under the National Export Strategy (NES) by the NES Secretariat. The next technical assistance session is scheduled to take place at the beginning of 2013 and will look at insuring and financing of a business.

An initiative of the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), a collaborating arm of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the FINPYME ExportPlus programme is significantly funded by the Government of Korea and provides technical assistance to exporters in 17 countries throughout the Caribbean. The programme was launched in Jamaica in October with the objectives to assist SMEs with building export readiness; improving market access; increasing the performance and exports; and providing development support and assistance to SMEs.

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