Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

President of Jamaica Trade and Invest Robert Gregory says the cost of expanding overseas is not material. - File

Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI) is to set up six new offices overseas, over two years, including Brazil, India and China, where government sees promise for the emergence of new investments.

The agency is also targeting foreign direct investment flows of $20 billion this fiscal year.

"The whole idea is to be in markets, which are emerging and to have physical representation there," said Robert Gregory, executive director of JTI.

"We have been trying to reach these markets in a sort of remote way. You send officers to trade shows and have trade missions, but to have an officer there, who can respond, all sort of things can happen in a market from day to day. It is always prudent, if you can afford to have a physical person there."

The other three offices will be opened in New York, Toronto and Brussels, Belgium.

Reposition the island

The agency currently has one office overseas, in London after its foreign operations were scaled back several years ago as part of a wider programme of cuts in recurrent spending by a cash-strapped government.

The new Bruce Golding administration, however, is attemp ting to reposition the island as business-focussed, while Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Karl Samuda has outlined an aggressive plan to entice local and foreign investments.

Working with embassies

Gregory said his trade teams would work in conjunction with the Jamaican embassies or high commissions in targeted countries.

Jamaica established a mission in China about three years ago, and just yesterday, the office of the prime minister announced an embassy was to be set up in Brazil.

"We are working in very close collaboration with the ministry of foreign affairs and foreign trade and we share physical facilities and we will collaborate deeply on all matters in the attraction of investments and the promotion of goods and services abroad," said the JTI president.

Gregory, who has been in the post just little over a year, refused to say how much it would cost to establish and run the missions.

"It's salaries and overheads," he said when pressed. "No, I am not giving you a figure, it is not material."

Gregory, however, explained each mission would operate with one mission manager per location and a small support staff.

The JTI expansion plan was first announced by Samuda in Parliament last week.

Samuda said the first three offices would be opened in the United States, Canada and Brussels this financial year. The others will come on stream by the first quarter of the 2009/10 fiscal year.

Increase investments

Samuda said the intent was to increase the flow of foreign investments to Jamaica, but did not say what specific targets the JTI offices would be given.

Last year, up to the end of April, JTI facilitated $22.3 billion of foreign direct invests with the creation of 7,277 jobs, exceeding its target of 7,000, said Samuda.

For the financial year 2008/09, JTI has targeted some $20 billion in investment, and 9,000 jobs.

"Broadly, the investment promotion strategy is to leverage existing and potential business relationships to drive Jamaica's advance towards high-end, high-impact, job-creating, sustainable niche investments from local and overseas sources," Samuda said.

According to the World Investment Report, 2007, Jamaica, in 2006, received US$850 million in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), which placed the country fourth in the Caribbean region in terms of FDI inflows.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com