Lavern Clarke, Staff Reporter
JAMAICAN businesses have began showing interest in the growth opportunities that an 800 million market brings, but on Thursday members of Government's trade team were forced to admit that presently they have no real idea how companies can exploit the openings.
The wider market will open up in 34 countries with the implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2005, to become the single largest trading bloc in the world.
But the success of any trade arrangement for individual signatories is measured around the degree to which the country can gain advantage from it, bringing to the fore issues of market identification and penetration.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, K.D. Knight, addressing the Small Businesses Association of Jamaica on Thursday evening said that there were opportunities to be had within the FTAA. He was then asked where the openings were, what niches were available to be exploited and some of the strategies that could be used to tap the markets; and that stumped him for a moment.
Those detailed analyses have not been done because it takes money to do the research, and from there to develop the type of market intelligence that can point businesses to the countries that will be most receptive to Jamaican products and services.
Ministry official Gail Mathurin said: "We don't really know what the key openings are, and where they are to be found, but we have to do it (find out) or else these trade arrangements will have no value."
Jamaican companies acknowledge the need for efficiencies, but there is a sense that even the larger companies are not too certain how far they need to go in order to compete on a sustainable basis at the international level. As well, everyone acknowledges that studies of Jamaica's situation to establish where its true comparative advantages lie, are needed urgently, but so far no one is coming up with the money to finance the research.
Logically, the process should be led by Government so that the information/data can be generated for all sectors, but they are waiting on grant funds from the international agencies. A process led by the private sector will likely be mainly to the advantage of the big businesses only.
Knight on Thursday said the process of developing the market intelligence has to co-opt other Government agencies. On his own travels recently, he discovered that there is a Jamaican community and interest in our music and food in Nicaragua. In other words, the opportunities do exist.
"We have to work JAMPRO," said the Minister. "Our representatives overseas have to be more trade-oriented now."
He also acknowledged that these were "brass tack" issues that talks with sector interests had to get into.
The Minister had earlier urged the small businesses to look very seriously at mergers and specialisation in order to derive economies of scale from boosted volumes and reduced unit costs, secure greater access to capital, and combine their resources in a centralised marketing programme.
Mathurin said alliances within Jamaica and the region were encouraged and facilitated under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
The small businesses association itself had some advice for the Minister - to prune away personnel within agencies that lack the drive to implement the changes, and so "stifle the process." And to implement an education campaign.
The association has acknowledged that new free trade rules have brought a new imperative for developing survival techniques, and it has sought the assistance of the Mona School of Business in its efforts to prepare members for Jamaica being opened up to more foreign competition.
Businesses are ready to change, they just need to be pointed in the right directions. But SBAJ president Andrea Graham also admitted that the members were scared - of an anticipated influx of foreign labour seeking jobs, and the possibility of not being able to transcend their reluctance to form business alliances.
Free movement of labour is scheduled for actual implementation in July, but Mathurin in assuring the association that at least one of its concerns was unfounded, said the only groups eligible were university graduates, media workers, artisans and entertainers.
The FAFT Ministry, in conjunction with the cross-sectoral Jamaica Trade and Adjustment Team (JTAT), has been meeting with different groupings for their take on the issues, in order to inform the country's negotiating position in the round of trade talks this year.
