JAMAICAN entrepreneurs have lost their appetite for risk, according to Karl Samuda, who says that businesspersons are refusing to take up relatively low interest loans.

“It was money at 10 per cent with a six-month moratorium and eventually they came back to us and said they don’t want it because they were not sure how they’re going to pay it back, although they are in exports,” said the commerce minister at a Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association luncheon last week. He was making specific reference to a $30 million loan facility that was made available to local agro-processors.

Samuda believes that the entrepreneurial spirit among Jamaicans was severely wounded during the 1990s financial meltdown, when many persons had horrific experiences with credit.

During that time, rapid increases in interest rates — up to 120 per cent — on the loans pushed the monthly payments way above the projections in the entrepreneurs’ business plans. The higher rates sustained over an extended period, a Government policy at the time, rendered many unable to properly service their loans. An enquiry into the 1990s collapse of the financial and business sectors and the events that led to the formation of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) has been ongoing for several weeks.

“They are many businesses today, in manufacturing paticularly, who are nervous about taking that leap that used to typify the entrepreneur of years ago, and the more that they listen to what had happened in the mid-nineties through the enquiry, they get even more timid,” said Samuda. “I say Jamaica is now ready for the involvment of entrepreneurs — to get a positive set of people looking on the bright side, recognising that we have great advantages, and if we the local investing community don’t take advantage of them, then others are going to come here and take advantage of them for us.”