President of the Port Authority of Jamaica, the Hon. Anthony Hylton (left) presents a gift to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson on Monday night at a special function hosted by the shipping industry to honour the Prime Minister, at Fort Charles, Port Royal. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
PORT ROYAL'S austere Fort Charles was transformed into a happy party venue on Monday evening, when Jamaica's shipping industry expressed its appreciation to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson for his unwavering support for the sector's growth and development throughout his political career.
"Under his wise leadership, we have developed a world-class maritime industry with more than 3,000 vessel calls per year, directly employing more than 3,000 Jamaicans and generating many thousands more jobs indirectly, both on and off the port," declared the Hon. Noel Hylton, president of the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), as he recounted the tremendous contributions of Prime Minister Patterson to Jamaica's maritime industry.
Before presenting the Prime Minister with a citation, the PAJ president noted that the Prime Minister's "unconditional support to the development of this sector has seen it become one of the Jamaica's greatest success stories, with the port of Kingston rated 63rd among the world's top 100 ports." The citation was written by Professor Rex Nettleford and read by Vivian Crawford, executive director of the Institute of Jamaica.
MAJOR PLAYERS
The function was organised by the major players in Jamaica's dynamic shipping industry - the Port Authority of Jamaica, the Shipping Association of Jamaica (SAJ), Kingston Wharves Ltd. and APM Terminals (Jamaica) Limited. It was on behalf of all these organisations that Mr. Hylton made a commitment to the James Patterson Institute of Technology, to provide equipment for that new facility.
Michael Bernard, president of the SAJ, delivered the official welcome, during which he drew attention to the fact that "it has been under the leadership of Prime Minister Patterson that our nation has seen the most audacious and extensive investments being made in port expansion and modernisation."
