MONTEGO BAY, St James – It will cost the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry $5 million to stage Caribbean Trade Exposition 2004, a show designed to showcase the best of the manufacturing industry in the western region and the wider Jamaica.

Scheduled to take place between October 8 to 10 at the cruise ship terminal in the second city, the theme of this year’s show is ‘Montego Bay – the emerging market’.

Some 120 exhibitors from Jamaica, the Caribbean and Latin America, are expected to mount displays in the areas of manufacturing, information technology and e-services, art and craft, airline and ground transportation, tourism, insurance, educational institutions, agriculture and financial services, among others.

At the September 2 launch, which was held at the Sunset Beach Resort in Montego Bay, Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology Phillip Paulwell said that the expo was being held at a time when the government was undertaking a number of initiatives to achieve economic stability, development and growth.

“Together – private and public sector – all of us have agreed that sustained growth and development can be realised only with continued improvements in the efficiency and production levels in areas of the Jamaican economy,” he said. “Only by embracing this challenge will we be able to produce goods and services that are competitive within the global economy.”

He noted that now, more than ever, it was imperative that business associations actively facilitate business development by fostering networking, clustering activities and new forms of strategic alliances among its members.

Minister Paulwell said that the government had embraced the upcoming expo as a benchmark for business development and promotion in Jamaica.

He commended the organisers and urged all citizens to unite and support the event, to make it yet another record-breaking promotional exposition.

The expo is expected to impact positively on the local economy, bringing together public and private sectors in a unified presentation of the best of the west as well as the best of what Jamaica has to offer.

Prime Minister PJ Patterson is expected to be the guest speaker at an awards banquet, the highlight of the expo’s week-end of activities, on Saturday, October 9.

It is also hoped that Olympic silver medallist Danny McFarlane, along with a number of other athletes from the recent Olympic games, will be in attendance on Sunday, the final day of the trade fair.