Marjory Kennedy (left), president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association, addresses a Gleaner Editors' Forum held yesterday at the company's North Street head offices in Central Kingston. Listening intently (from second left) are: Richard Chen, vice-president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica; Laura Butler, director of the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ), and Oswald Smith, president of the SBAJ. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor

The country's private sector leaders want the next Prime Minister to lead the drive for the expansion of businesses and investment.

They also want the head of government to "focus on reducing the bureaucracy," according to Richard Chen, first-vice president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).

"When the Prime Minister wants a project to take place, the bureaucracy is removed and the focus is placed on it and things happen," he stated.

Mr. Chen was representing the PSOJ at a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's head office on North Street,Central Kingston, yesterday. The participants, which included representatives of the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) and the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ), identified priority issues the new government will need to address.

Mr. Chen argued, too, that there was a wall of mistrust between the private and public sectors, which needed to be removed if the country was to advance economically.

Citing the Partnership for Progress, a PSOJ-led initiative to implement a social partnership with the private sector, unions and Government, Mr. Chen said it "has largely failed because it was not driven by the head of the country."

Modelled off the Irish experience, the partnership would ensure that Jamaica's socio-economic climate improves through a combination of expenditure cuts, wage restraint, more aggressive privatisation and a voluntary swap of high yielding local domestic debt for lower initial yielding debt.

Mr. Chen said the partnership approach was successful in Ireland because it was driven by the Irish Prime Minister.

"Whoever the Prime Minister is after August 27, he or she will have to take up that mantle. It has to be driven by the Prime Minister," he stated.

Supporting her colleague, Marjory Kennedy, president of the JEA said, "if you want anything to happen it has to come from the top".

Commenting on the need to reduce the bureaucracy, she said: "People want things simplified, they want to be facilitated. If you don't facilitate them, then they are going to find a way around it."

Echoed Mr. Chen: "If we want seven per cent economic growth, it is going to come from small businesses starting up in Jamaica and thriving, which is why the (facilitatory) environment is so important."

Another pressing issue the business sector wants addressed by the next government is the country's growing debt problem.

"The Government has to come with a structured approach to paying down the debt," said Mr. Chen. "It is a huge feature, it is the largest feature in our economy; you have to pay the debt down and that will bring interest rates down."