JAMPRO secures US $166.7 million in FDIs up to June

The Government’s investment promotion agency, JAMPRO continues to secure investments for the country across various sectors.

“Up to June of this year, we have booked foreign direct investments (FDI) at US$166.7 million, while export sales stood at US$407.3 million, and the work doesn’t stop there,” said JAMPRO Chairman, Senator Don Wehby.

He was making his contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate on Friday.

Senator Wehby noted the investments and growth in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, which had employment of 32,500 persons as at September 2018.

“This industry is growing so fast that we have to ensure that we have the people that are properly trained to meet the demand, because we are projecting at JAMPRO, 11,000 new jobs a year in the BPO industry,” he said.

He told the Upper House that the National Investment Policy (NIP) will be coming on stream in the first quarter of next year.

It aims to establish a comprehensive framework that will guide the development, administration and monitoring of the investment community.

“This is to ensure cohesion among all related initiatives, programmes, incentives regime and stakeholder contributions,” Senator Wheby said. JAMPRO serves as the Technical Secretariat for the NIP.

In the meantime, Senator Wehby said JAMPRO is working on the road map to position Jamaica to get to top 10 in terms of ease of doing business in the World Bank Doing Business Report.

Jamaica is ranked 75 out of 190 countries in the latest report.

“In trying to achieve that objective, we have engaged the World Bank and the International Financial Corporation (IFC) global regulatory team to identify the reforms that are needed.

Discussions are going well and I am really hoping that we can report in a few years that we are in the top 10 in the Doing Business Report,” he said.

JAMPRO is an agency of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, which promotes business opportunities in export and investment to the local and international private sector.