JAMAICANS FROM five regions will gather at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, today and tomorrow for the second Jamaican Diaspora Conference.
The event will see 500 delegates from Africa, Canada, Central America, the United States and the United Kingdom in attendance.
Topping the list for the conference is the country's spiralling crime rate. The event will also seek to address 'Opportunities for Business Linkages and Investment', 'Globalisation and the Diaspora', and implications for the movement of people with focus on the CARICOM Single Market.
The country is also set to benefit from a 'Jamaica Fund' to be tabled by the Canadian Diaspora.
According to Sharon Ffolkes Abrahams, vice- president of the Jamaica Diaspora Foundation in Canada, the fund will allow for financing for several projects to be undertaken in the country.
"We are really concerned that there are projects that need to be funded and we intend to do so, these projects include education, health and policing activities," she said.
Additionally, the Canadian Diaspora will place emphasis on 'Brand Jamaica' and investment opportunities in the country.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
"We need greater information on business opportunities, and we believe that a registry of a centralised system should be set up so that the diaspora can be made aware of business opportunities in Jamaica," Mrs. Ffolkes Abrahams said.
Business opportunities will not be limited to Jamaica, as Marlon Hill, attorney-at-law in the United States Diaspora, will seek to engage the conference on investment opportunities in the respective countries in the diaspora.
"We want to strengthen business linkages between Jamaica and the diaspora, such as match making between local and overseas businesses, and form strategic alliances for mutual entrepreneurship," he said.
