Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
Valerie Veira, chief executive officer of the Jamaica Business Development Centre. - Norman Grindley /Deputy Chief Photographer
The government has launched the first five of a dozen information centres it hopes to establish across Jamaica to help investors in micro and small business develop their enterprises, which the Portia Simpson Miller administration says will be a major plank in its economic strategy.
The first of these units are in Hanover, Montego Bay, Negril, Portmore and St. Ann, developed by Jamaica Business Development Centre (JBDC), an agency of the commerce and technology ministry, in collaboration with the local chambers of commerce. Similar centres are to be established, over time, in other parishes, providing places where people in small business get help in areas such as writing business plans, registering their enterprises, accessing training for staff and linking with government agencies such as the Trade Board and the Scientific Research Council.
The administration has already spent $19 million on the project, but Valerie Veira, the JBDC's CEO, says the agency will require more cash to expand the concept.
Small and micro enterprises account for a third of jobs in Jamaica and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who gained the top job in the government in March, has said that it is a sector she intends to concentrate on to drive the island's anaemic economic growth. She announced during her budget presentation in April that the government would did into the National Insurance Fund (NIF) for $1 billion for on-lending to small businesses, but agencies which will make the loans say they are still waiting for the cash and the regime that will govern the credit.
But Phillip Paulwell, under-pinning the government's vision of micro and small businesses, insisted that such operations had to be technologically savvy and competitive.
"Our new breed of MSEs (medium and small enterprises), must be world class business entities, that will have attributes such as excellence in production processes and customer service management," Paulwell said on Wednesday at the function held at the JBDC's office on Camp Road in Kingston. He said these businesses needed to develop the capability to use information technologies and technical support to develop high value-added products and services.
The enterprises must also have the ability to compete both in the domestic market and globally, Paulwell said.
"In optimising the contribution of MSEs to employment and economic development, we need to raise the rate of formation of new MSEs with growth potential, since MSEs will contribute to investment, employment and income generation," he said.
While the JBDC is partnering with the regional chambers of commerce to develop the centres, these are not the only organisations with which it will partner on the project, officials say.
"Our focus will not just be with the chambers of commerce, but also library services or general business services that have a client base in place" said Lisa Edwards, the JBDC's business manager.
