THE Development Bank of Jamaica(DBJ) will host an international conference, to be held under the theme: ‘Delivering economic growth through partnerships: financing regional infrastructure, SME’s and innovation. The conference will take place on June 10 – 13 at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.

It was announced yesterday that international venture capital expert Paul Ahlstrom will join the 40-plus speakers.

At a previous press launch, key speakers and sponsors addressed the significance of the event and the impact it will have on the business environment, highlighting that the time is ripe in Jamaica for such an event.

“We have a very good record so far, having started these conferences in 2013 with our first VC conference. Since then we have seen the interest grow, we have seen the environment and ecosystem grow and it has always been the objective of the DBJ that this becomes a private sector-led industry and we see more and more private sector taking a leadership role in the industry,” shared Audrey Richards, project coordinator, Jamaica Venture Capital Programme.

Milverton Reynolds, managing director of the Development Bank of Jamaica, highlighted the diversity of the speakers and the quality of their combined expertise, “Our gallery of speakers and presenters are among the very best local, regional, and international practitioners.” With some key names including Michale Lee-Chin, Dr Nigel Clarke, Senator Aubyn Hill, Laurie Peters, the Canadian High Commissioner, and Lisandra Rickards of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship — Caribbean.

According to the website, “the conference will…discuss, deliberate on and examine key issues that will impact the continued growth of Jamaica through infrastructure development, the expansion of our emerging private equity and venture capital markets and the continued growth of the SME sector, innovation and entrepreneurship”.

Other issues to be addressed include how to incorporate climate resilience in infrastructure asset development. It is expected that over 300 local and international business entities, stakeholders, entrepreneurs and innovators will attend the event.

“We truly believe this will be successful. There is a lot of interest so we expect that it will be an amazing conference,” Reynolds said.