- Photo by Noel Thompson
Dr. Wykeham McNeill (left), State Minister in the Ministry of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, listens keenly to Cynthia Archer, treasurer of the Harbour Street Craft and Cultural Village, during a face-to-face meeting with members of the executive committee in Montego Bay last month. Mrs. Sandra Bellinfantie (centre), product quality officer at the Tourism Product Development Company, observes. The EX-IM Bank is offering financing for tourism-related businesses like craft making.
Edmond Campbell, Senior News Coordinator
The 20-year-old National Export Import Bank (Ex-Im), open to aggressive competition from similar entities within the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), is bracing itself to take on any challenge from competitors. It is doing so by providing products to Jamaican exporters and manufacturers that will match offerings elsewhere in the region.
Managing director of the Ex-Im Bank, Pamella McLean says the CSM will not only have far-reaching implications for the productive sectors of the Jamaican economy but will impact her organisation as well.
With the onset of the CSM, Mrs. McLean argues that there is nothing to prevent Jamaican manufacturers and exporters from approaching the Trinidad and Tobago Export Import Bank or any other market to seek more attractive funding.
"No longer can I consider, just the marketplace here in Jamaica as the area for competition, it is now the region and I dare say the rest of the world," she points out.
Impact of improved macroeconomy
The Ex-Im managing director told The Sunday Gleaner that an improved macroeconomy would impact the ratings given to Jamaica by international ratings agencies. This would then help Ex-Im to source cheaper funds in the marketplace.
"The performance of my economy and all of these variables that the ratings agencies are looking for in order to give a rating to the country is going to be very important, for what I do here.
"It's like a catch 22," she explains, "because to the extent that the economy does well we will do well, and to the extent that Ex-Im does well by providing the products to the productive sector to help them to compete and generate the levels of export, it will also help the economy to do well."
Turning to government funding for Ex-Im, Mrs. McLean acknowledged that the national budget would not be able to provide her institution with all the resources it requires to drive the entity.
At the end of financial year 2005/2006 the bank disbursed a total of three billion dollars. This represented a 25 per cent growth in the bank's portfolio over the previous year.
Meanwhile, the Ex-Im head says there are several untapped areas that the bank is poised to explore. According to Mrs. McLean, her entity will provide financial support to Jamaican businesses, which supply local hotels.
"It is coming to my attention that there are several suppliers of food, craft items, clothing to the various hotels here who run into cash flow problems as they sit and wait for their receivables".
Working capital assistance
She explained that if those same manufacturers were selling the same goods to a hotel overseas, they would have been able to receive working capital assistance from Ex-Im.
"So my intention is to give that same kind of benefit to the same producer who could be exporting to the overseas market, but he is doing the same thing for the local hotel chain."
Mrs. McLean says Ex-Im will also take a more in-depth look at the services sector, with particular emphasis on entertainment.
"If we should take that on it is enormous, both in terms of what the requirements would be from an input side - financial resources - and also in terms of its contribution, its export earning potential .That is something that we must begin to turn our attention to."
With the onset of the CSM, there is nothing to prevent Jamaican manufacturers and exporters from approaching the Trinidad and Tobago Export Import Bank or any other market to seek more attractive funding.
