THE LOCAL manufacturing sector is asking the Jamaica Bureau of Standards for help. Manufacturers say they are under intense pressure to maintain the viability of their operations, especially in the face of the flood of cheap, low-quality imports. As reported in The Sunday Gleaner, the manufacturers accused the Bureau of Standards of not properly ensuring that goods entering the island conform to the same standard required of locally-made products.
The manufacturers charged that the Dr. Omer Thomas-led Bureau was not being sufficiently vigilant at a time when Jamaica is being inundated with cheaper, sub-standard foreign goods. The president of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA), Doreen Frankson, argues that there's a tremendous amount of dumping taking place while the Bureau keeps the locally manufactured products at a very high standard.
Do the manufacturers have a reasonable case? We think they do.
Dr. Thomas concedes that the Bureau needs to be more vigilant in ensuring that all products, whether local or imported, conform to Jamaican standards. With the forces of globalisation and free trade in the ascendancy, certain countries have mastered to a fine art a formidable array of non-tariff barriers to keep out imports from competitors. This finely crafted array of non-tariff barriers is a strategic plank in their national effort to protect their local industries from competition.
We must learn from them and prepare to not only protect our own but also ensure that we can compete fairly. For example, our local producers of chicken meat can testify to their experience trying to penetrate the United States market. Coming out of that experience and following the sometimes painful transformation it has had to undergo, Jamaica Broilers is now a globally competitive producer of chicken meat.
The Bureau of Standards is this country's first line of defence in the promotion of free and fair trade. It must be eternally vigilant against those producers, local and foreign, who would wish to pass on sub-standard goods to an unsuspecting consumer. At the same time, manufacturers must make the necessary adjustments to their operations so that they can compete effectively on both price and quality.
The Economic and Social Survey, 2002, described the performance in manufacturing output as weak.
Two of the major factors contributing to the decline were higher operational costs that led to uncompetitive cost structures and competition from lower-priced consumer imports. We note that some in the sector are benefiting from the provision of concessionary loans while efforts such as the cluster competitiveness project and the modernisation action programme are being implemented as part of efforts to stem the decline.
While the role of the Bureau of Standards is very important, the absolutely critical factor in reviving manufacturing is the cost of money and key inputs such as electricity and, increasingly, security. Without a sustainable reduction in the general cost of money, our real producers will not be able to transform their operations into globally competitive businesses.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
