JAMAICA COALITION OF SERVICES INDUSTRIES

Jamaica’s strategy for increasing services exports to the FCORs/OCTs:

Ms. Marjorie Straw, Jamaica Coalition of Services Industries

Introduction

• Jamaica has many competitive edges that could be exploited through trade with the FCORs– Low cost labour– Resourceful people– Fairly large population– Excellent weather– Cultural strength– Sporting successes

Services Trends in Jamaica

• There has been a growth in trade in services in Jamaica over the years. Obviously Tourism dominates.

• Services as a percentage of GDP in Jamaica has been approximately 70% over the last ten years. This continues to reinforce how important services are to the economy.

Structure of Presentation• This presentation will examine six areas in

which Jamaica could successfully export services and related products to the FCOR and to France and Mainland EU.

• The six areas are:– Education services– Customer service training – Fashion and related products and services– ICT– Film– Renewable Energy and related services

EDUCATION• Foster intercultural exchanges.• Jamaica’s unique cultural richness, reggae

and sports heritage ESL - Immersion Programmes Student exchanges with Universities.

FASHION• Conduct a mission to examine the French

influence and the French Caribbean nexxus on fashion.

• Shopping Tourism that would encourage trips to Jamaica to take advantage of lower price points on apparel.

• Export garments to the FCOR markets such as swimwear.

• Jamaica represents a cheaper option.

ICT• Offer back office support due to lower labour

costs.• Enter into joint ventures or collaborate to offer

back office processing that does not require oral language. Examples could be the processing of international credit card and similar types of transactions.

• Processing of large volumes of documents.• global IT off-shoring market is very large and

there is an increase in demand for services such as hosting services, E-Learning, home security systems, and networking management systems, which do not depend on the spoken language.

FILM• Share locations • Do production and editing in Jamaica

where there is a cost advantage and some spectacular sites and scenery e.g. Dunns River Falls and the Blue Mountains.

• Hire production personnel • The development of vibrant local

television and video production sectors with export possibilities

• Collaborate to share knowledge and skills.

TOURISM CUSTOMER SERVICES TRAINING

• Jamaica is a leading tourism destination with strong customer service industry.

• Exchange programmes – hotel chains, HEART Hospitality Training School.

• Exchange with BSOs/hotels to learn best practices in the business.

TOURISM

• Multi destination tourism where visitors to Martinique can “hop over” to Jamaica for unique tourism adventures – Mystic Mountain, Eco tours, Dolphin Cove etc.,

Renewable EnergyGuadeloupe has a lot of expertise in various forms of renewable energy with examples of each type actually supplying their national grid. Jamaica can take advantage of Guadeloupe’s experience/expertise. Guadeloupe and the rest of the FCOR can take advantage of the relatively low cost of labour in Jamaica to manufacture and export (solar panels, etc) to markets where labour is more expensive such as France and the rest of the EU.

Other services identified as having potential in Jamaica

• Accounting and auditing

• Financial services

• Health & Wellness

• Architecture (recently acquired a MRA)

• Transport – Jamaica has a very good transshipment port. So goods from other countries could be consolidated or broken into smaller quantities and sent to FCOR.

Thank You