By Lavern Clarke, Staff Reporter 
Anas Alkhateeb (right) decided against closing Angel's Fashion store in downtown Kingston yesterday - Michael Sloley /Freelance Photographer
THE BUSINESS community can do little more than guess at what the total loss of earnings will be from yesterday's shutdown of the commercial district, with Michael Ammar, Jr. putting the figure at "tens of millions" for the formal retail and wholesale trade.
That's the closest 'guesstimate' that the new Jamaica Chamber of Commerce president and clothing retailer could determine for revenues generated by the district on any trading day, based on his own experience as a businessman operating in the heart of the city.
Estimates are even less specific for the informal trade in the markets and the illegal vending on the streets. Morin Seymour, executive director of the Kingston Restoration Company, says his take on the informal trade, based only on visual evidence, is "plenty millions" - not counting the underground extortion racket that the police have loosely put at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr. Seymour, whose agency is a central figure in plans to redevelop and revitalise downtown Kingston, says his last reconnaissance of the area on a Saturday three weeks ago, showed that as he moved west, the trading got heavier. "My guess is that the KSAC is losing $100 million a year easily in uncollected fees," he told Wednesday Business. Or $274,000 per day. A survey done in 1984 for the Inter-American Development Bank had estimated the vendor population on peak market days at 10,000.
Downtown Kingston is also the nation's main transportation hub, and the closure would also have cut into commuter revenue, and cargo movement within and outside the district.
The JCC president said city wholesalers do "big" business with the independent sellers.
"Which is why we continually press the point that we are not against vending, because vending is a critical part of the whole distribution cycle," said Mr. Ammar. "What we are against is the anarchy that now exists."
No agency has calculated the full economic impact of the city's core, but a considerable sum is generated downtown daily when the earnings of big players like Grace Kennedy and Company, whose annual revenues have topped $15 billion, or over $40 million daily; Bank of Nova Scotia with its $7.9 billion or $21.6 million/day and the premier agency for capital formation, 33-year-old Jamaica Stock Exchange are factored.
"If you take out bauxite, sugar and tourism, downtown Kingston is number one (in earnings)," said Seymour. "We're big, we're powerful."
In 1990, it was estimated that the formal economy downtown comprised 1,184 businesses employing 13,928 workers - with the commercial trade accounting for 732 establishments and 5,432 jobs, financial/professional and other office services had 360 firms which generated 4,973 jobs, while 92 manufacturing entities employed the other 1,365.
The numbers climbed to 1,239 establishments and 18,139 jobs when the public sector was pulled into the mix.
