A new loan facility for the information, communication and technology (ICT) sector, under which the Ex-Im Bank will provide an $80-million pool of funds for software development, receivables financing, working capital and the purchase of equipment, was announced by minister of finance and planning, Omar Davies, yesterday.

The interest rate on the loans will be 12 per cent per annum.
One of the loan's two components is a short-term working capital facility, termed the Young Entrepreneurial Scheme (YES), that will focus on young and upcoming entrepreneurs in the sector who are either working out of the Technology Innovation Centre at the University of Technology, or engaged in similar businesses elsewhere in the island.
Each borrower is initially eligible for a loan of up to half-a-million dollars, but repeat borrowers may access additional financing not exceeding the overall limit of $1 million.

The second component will involve the Ex-Im Bank's medium-term facility of $60 million, which will be used to establish ICT companies registered and operating in Jamaica. The loan limit is $15 million, repayable over five years.

Late last year, the Government announced absolute growth in the ICT which, it said, was expected to continue into the new fiscal year.

Minister of commerce, science and technology, Phillip Paulwell, has insisted that the ICT sector remains Jamaica's main hope for generating economic growth and job creation.
However, the industry has suffered in the shadow of the 2001 collapse of NetServ, (the ICT company that figured prominently in his big plans to generate 40,000 new jobs over a three-year period), after it was revealed that the National Investment Bank of Jamaica had doled out more than $700 million in soft loans to the company.

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