NCB will keep profits in Ja, says Lee-Chin
published: Wednesday | November 27, 2002
Winners of The Sunday Gleaner's Independence/Emancipation Essay Competition and scholarship donors in a celebratory mood following the presentation ceremony at The Gleaner yesterday. From left are: Audrey Marks, founder of Jamaica's Promise/managing director of Paymaster Jamaica Limited, who donated the scholarship to Carole Barnaby, a student of the University of the West Indies Faculty of Social Sciences; Michael Lee-Chin, chairman of AIC/National Commercial Bank, whose scholarship went to Farrah Blake, a student of the School of Business at the University of Technology; Gordon Tewani, managing director of Mall and Tropical Jewellers, who donated the scholarship to Tyrone Sutherland, business student at the Northern Caribbean University. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer
HEAD OF the National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Canadian Mutual Fund company AIC, Michael Lee-Chin, yesterday called for business owners to resist the temptation to send their profits abroad and reinvest in the local economy.
"I feel so strongly that Jamaica is on the verge of a turn-around, but I keep hearing that Jamaica needs foreign direct investments (FDI). But, if every Jamaican business made a commitment, for the foreseeable future, to have the attitude of not having one foot in and one foot out ... but reinvesting ... compounding if you like, we would go a far way." Mr. Lee-Chin said.
He was speaking to winners and sponsors of The Gleaner's Independence Essay Competition at the newspaper's North Street office.
"I am calling on all Jamaican businesses to reinvest in Jamaica. If we all did this we would not need any foreign direct investments. I am also calling on all foreign-owned businesses in Jamaica to leave your profits here for a while."
He said his investment agency, AIC, would lead by example and refrain from sending its profits overseas.
"For the foreseeable future, we will not be moving our money from Jamaica," he said to loud applause.
This announcement has far-reaching ramifications for the banking sector in Jamaica as NCB's competitors are multinationals that have their headquarters outside of Jamaica, with their profits helping to make the bottom line of their parent companies look healthy on the balance sheet (CIBC, BNS (Canada) and RBTT, Trinidad and Tobago).
According to data gathered from the United Nations World Investment Report 2002, and compiled by the Financial Gleaner, FDI to Jamaica over the past three years grew by 95.7 per cent, moving from US$369 million in 1998 to US$722 million in 2001, making the country the second largest recipient of FDI in the English-speaking Carib-bean. This is second only to Trinidad and Tobago, whose FDI inflows over the same period moved from US$732 million to US$835 million.
