MANDEVILLE, Manchester – Against the backdrop

of Jamaica’s declining bauxite/alumina sector, state minister for industry, investment and commerce, Michael Stern, says his Government is moving to expand the limestone mining industry.

Stern was speaking recently at the opening of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation’s (JBDC) ninth business information centre,

a collaboration with the Northern Caribbean University.

Responding to news that the Alpart, Kirkvine, and Ewarton plants, all owned by Russian company UC Rusal, would not reopen if local production energy costs were not reduced, Stern said his Government had done enough research to feel confident that a limestone industry could plug the bauxite fallout. He said Rinca, which is among the United States’ biggest cement and limestone companies, has just started mining limestone in Clarendon following a $300-million agreement signed with the Government last year.

“We don’t realise we have a large deposit of limestone, we have an almost endless supply. The options for limestone are very easy because we have the infrastructure, we have the railways, some of the people losing work, they have the know-how. Even if we are to get back bauxite, it wouldn’t be the same bauxite industry, so we shouldn’t look back,” he said.

Noting that products such as toothpaste, whitening, paper products, building and paint products could be made out of limestone, the state minister said Jamaica must start building its processing capacity if it is to retain its key industries. He said during a recent trip to a conference in Mauritius, he realised that Jamaica was known as a country of “samples”. “They consider us a country of samples, we have the best samples but can never provide the quantity.”

Decrying the inadequacy of Jamaica’s agricultural production, the state minister said persons were fighting with his ministry for the right to import products such as ginger and pepper which are grown locally, because enough was not being produced. “We’re literally out of ackee in Jamaica, our parents just kept planting trees, we have stopped planting trees, we just reap and reap and reap,” he said.

Commenting on the environmental challenges of mining bauxite, Stern told the Observer that limestone was less hazardous to the environment, as “we wouldn’t need the ponds, for example. Of course, we can’t get away from the dust.”