Haiti is, more often than not, dismissed as a viable market for exports from Jamaica and is usually not thought of as a possible opportunity for Jamaican companies to establish and do business there.

The reasons voiced for ignoring Haiti are numerous, including: it is politically unstable, it is just a mass of poor people with little spending power (the poorest in the Western Hemisphere), there are logistics problems as everything has to go through Miami, and they speak French patois. The discouraging complexities seemed to be multiplied with the devastation of Port-au-Prince by the January 2010 earthquake.

Frequently overlooked is the fact that Haiti is a market of 10 million people, is a member of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and, importantly, many local and foreign companies conduct profitable business in Haiti. Jamaican companies would be minded not to ignore this opportunity in one of our geographically closest neighbours.

Jamaica Broilers, one of our most innovative companies, has caught the vision and is operating successfully in this market. If growth continues at current pace, it will become a larger and more important market than Jamaica, the home market of the company. Jamaica Broilers, after less than two years since entering the Haitian market, is producing chicks, eggs and feed.

Digicel, another Jamaican company, is also doing well in Haiti.

The myth that a large population of very poor people is not a good market was exposed by C K Prahalad’s 2004 book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. In reality, Haiti is a viable market for Jamaica and can boost the economic development of all of Caricom.

The economic development of Haiti can be promoted by economic integration with Caricom. Such integration would initiate a virtual circle of intra-regional trade and investment beneficial to both the economic development of Haiti and the rest of the regional bloc. Jamaican companies can jump-start a market-driven process of trade and investment-led economic development in Haiti by investing in that country and exporting and importing goods and services.

The earnings from trade with, and investment in Haiti will, in turn, stimulate economic growth in Jamaica and Caricom to purchase imports from Haiti. As trade expands it will stimulate employment and private sector investment in Haiti and generate positive externalities, including strengthening Haiti’s international competitiveness and economic development.

Trade and investment in Haiti have additional attractions in the form of preferential trade arrangements which constitute an economic platform for capitalising on the export opportunities of a global market. The Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Programme are good examples of such agreements.

Haiti can benefit from the expansion of business with Jamaica because private sector activity is the indispensable mechanism and most fecund strategy for the promotion of the economic development of Haiti on a sustainable basis.

Ironically, private sector activity may succeed where the misdirected aid of the international community has so far failed.