Mandeville, Manchester – Finance Minister Audley Shaw called the economic crisis “uncharted waters”. Prime Minister Bruce Golding argued that the world after the crisis will bear “no resemblance to the world that we saw when the recession began”.

And apparently faithful to the old adage that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ both leaders told their town hall audience in Mandeville last Tuesday night that the crippling economic crisis can be the basis for a massive increase in production and wealth creation.

It was also an opportunity for a revamping and “re-engineering” of the financial system and of the way lenders service the productive sector, argued Golding. He claimed Jamaican banks have been “spoilt” down the years to rely on “safe” interest-earning instruments rather than take the risks that were necessary to energise production.

The collapse of the bauxite/alumina industry was a “wake-up call” and “alternative replacement industries must now be found” declared Shaw, who is also member of parliament for North East Manchester.

A constant refrain from the finance minister has been the need for a comprehensively developed processed foods industry as part of a drive to widen the range of activities on which the Jamaican economy depends. He carried the same theme on Tuesday night to the Golf View Hotel conference hall packed with people from Mandeville and its environs who had come to hear Government leaders explain strategies to confront the global economic crisis.

With the use of appropriate technology, Shaw argued, the processed foods industry could “in a few short years export at least 10 times more than what we are exporting now. We could start by exporting just four times more which would move us from US$250 million per year to one billion US dollars per year.” he declared.

It was possible, he said, “because the market is there, we have a Jamaican Diaspora that is hungry for our ethnic foods, a Diaspora as big as the population of Jamaica.”

The appetite of the Jamaican society for imported foods, even while its own productive capacity remained largely idle, is a sore point for a passionate Shaw. He was “sick and tired” as finance minister, he said, of being called on to sign “waivers” for a variety of products simply because Jamaican producers were not realising their potential.

“(I am) tired of signing waivers for things we can produce here in Jamaica. importing crushed peppers when we can plant acres and acres on idle lands – of Scotch bonnet or any kind of pepper we want – we are signing waivers for tomato purée, signing waivers for escallion, signing waivers for onion, signing waivers for pineapple. when in the whole of St Elizabeth we can plant the sweetest pineapple to be found anywhere in the world.” said Shaw.

Like Shaw, Golding emphasised the imperative of “value added” if Jamaicans are to maximise the benefits of production. It wasn’t good enough that Jamaica continued to produce commodities of the highest quality such as coffee and cocoa, yet others reaped the value-added benefits.

But the prime minister declared that for Jamaica’s productive capacity to be enhanced there would have to be a change in the approach to lending. Hence his request of outgoing minister without portfolio in the finance ministry, Senator Don Wehby, to assess how best to create an entity that would make it easier for businesses to borrow.

“We not going to get anywhere unless our banking system is prepared to respond to the needs and the challenges,” Golding said.

“We are going to have to re-engineer our financing arrangements, we not going to cut it if people have to go to a bank that really not prepared to talk to them because they really not interested in taking risks.

“Over many, many years we have spoilt the banking system to a point where they don’t want to take risks anymore, because if they can get some government paper that pays them good interest rates, why take risks?” he added.

Claiming it was unrealistic to expect real growth in production and job creation at borrowing rates of “18, 20, 25 per cent”, Golding insisted that while he had no intention of leading government “back into (direct) lending” to end-users, “we need to find a way to provide affordable financing”.

The Government, he suggested, would have to “think out of the box” and explore “partnerships” and “venture capital” arrangements to bolster business and production.

“Government will put up some of the capital, we will put some people on your board to make sure that the business is run properly, we will hold your hand and after a period of years. when you have reached a stage when you don’t need us anymore, you buy us out and we go somewhere else to help somebody get started in business,” the prime minister explained by way of an example of possible future strategies.