WASHINGTON, DC – The Jamaican Embassy in Washington is collaborating with Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) in the staging of business outreach events aimed at encouraging Jamaican entrepreneurs in the United States (US) to seize investment opportunities in the island.
“To get more joint venture opportunities going, what we have been doing at the Embassy, in conjunction with JAMPRO, is having more outreach to show persons where we are at and where we are going,” stated Ambassador to the US, Her Excellency Audrey Marks.
Ambassador Audrey Marks
“Our job has been made a bit easier because of the progress that has been happening in the economy over the past year and a half, and the work that we are doing on crime, and the stabilisation of our macro economic framework,” she added.
Ambassador Marks was responding to questions from journalists at yesterday’s (October 25) press launch of the Jamaica Observer’s Business Leader Awards 2011 at the newspaper’s head office in St. Andrew.
She argued that the interest shown in the affairs of the country by Jamaicans in the Diaspora must be managed and galvanised so that in addition to the more than $2 billion they send home each year, they can take up investments in high growth sectors.
She informed that information technology (IT), financial services and energy “are the main areas where we are seeing interest”.
“I am amazed at how enthused Jamaican/Americans are and how much they want to be involved in Jamaica’s development. You will see it by the number of persons, who have retained their Jamaican passports, persons who are there for 30 to 40 years, and they still say ‘we are coming back to Jamaica.’ So they keep their Jamaican passports and that’s just one indication of the passion that is there,” she stated.
Vice President for Planning and Corporate Development at JAMPRO, Dr. Dana Morris-Dixon, said that there is a deliberate push to encourage the Diaspora to invest in the island.
She informed that coming out of meetings between the Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Hon. Dr. Christopher Tufton, and the Jamaica/USA Chamber of Commerce in Miami in August, business engagements with the Diaspora has become a permanent fixture.
“As part of those (deliberations) the Consul General in (Miami) set up some meetings with members of the Jamaican Diaspora that were very influential in Florida. So what we have been doing is trying to, in all of our events at JAMPRO, to engage the Diaspora. We believe that there is a lot of potential so the Diaspora will be a more important facet of our promotional efforts going forward,” Dr. Morris-Dixon said.
The 2011 Observer Business Leader Awards will highlight entrepreneurs within the Jamaican Diaspora, who have made significant contribution to the economic development of their adopted country.
The awards ceremony will take place on November 30 at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
