Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries Audley Shaw at the recent launch of the Jamaica Survey of Establishments (JSE) 2018, has called on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to get themselves formally ready to take advantage of the monetary benefits that are in place to facilitate them.

Shaw urged that while money is in the country for these entities to access, they can only do so if they make their operations more formal and transparent.

“One thing we know is that there is money, there is money is this country — but we have to get it channelled in the right direction and it has to be a partnership,” he said Shaw also spoke to how MSME’s can go about getting lower loan rates.

“Our MSMEs must understand that for them to access money and access it at the simple rates that small hotels are now accessing it through the EXIM bank, in a partnership through the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) — our hotels are getting money at 4.5 per cent interest rates — and our small businesses must understand that they too will be able to access money at single-digit interest rates.

But they must embrace the opportunity to become formal and transparent,” he further stressed. The minister also made clear to government lending agencies, such as the Ministry of Finance, the EXIM bank and the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), who were also present at the launch, that they too will have a role to play in helping small businesses to build out their mark in this economy.

“We have to get down, in a real granular way, to see how we can build out formality in the economy — and we say to our MSMEs, in exchange for formality and in exchange for transparency, we have to work on developing proper business plans,” he stated.

Shaw believes that the survey’s findings places Jamaica in a better position to plan, as there is the need to now focus on, gather, and analyse baseline data towards policies and strategies to be able to inspire and support the gestation and sustenance of our local entrepreneurs and businesses.

“We have a clearer picture of the MSME sector because that’s where the growth has to come from. How can it be that 90 per cent of our businesses are MSMEs, yet the report tells us that the vast majority of them are not borrowing money?

“We have a lot of work to do and part of what we have to do is to indulge, in a very concrete way, how we are going to, in a more aggressive way, build out a formal economy because part of our problem is this high level of informality,” the minister said.