KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica has joined 28 other nations, including several Caribbean states, that have developed online investment guides (iGuides).

These facilities are repositories of information for local and foreign investors interested in doing business in the respective countries.   

Work to develop the guides was led by local stakeholders, principally countries’ investment promotion agencies in several instances, in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) spearheaded development of the country’s iGuide, which also involved inputs from the Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (CAIPA), and the Caribbean Export Development Agency (CEDA).

The information, which is hosted on UNCTAD’s website, can also be accessed on JAMPRO’s platform from any location globally.

It facilitates a comparison of Jamaica as an investment destination, alongside other countries globally.

The iGuide is intended to provide investors with information at their fingertips that will help them in their decisions to invest in Jamaica.

Among the focus areas are manufacturing, agri-business, energy, the creative industries, the knowledge sectors, mining, tourism, and the Logistics Hub Initiative (LHI) and the partner Special Economic Zone (SEZ) framework.

A foreign translation feature has also been incorporated to facilitate ease of communication.

The iGuide was formally launched and symbolically handed over recently to JAMPRO President, Diane Edwards, by UNCTAD Economist, Ian Richards, who spearheads the overall investment guide programme.

The agency will serve as the facility’s custodian and will be responsible for, among other things, keeping the site’s information up to date.

The presentation was made during a brief ceremony at JAMPRO’s head office in New Kingston.

Edwards, who is CAIPA’s Immediate Past President, said the iGuide is an important tool and welcome addition to investment promotion in Jamaica.

Noting that the local investment climate is “extremely positive”, she said the iGuide “is going to take that information out to the world in a form that is really using best practice”.

Edwards assured that as the country’s national investment and promotion agency, JAMPRO remains committed to improving the business environment.

“Our constant focus is on how do we make it easier for people to do business in Jamaica… . How do we make the business environment more open and how do we make businesses feel more welcome in Jamaica. All of that is important to us,” she said.

Edwards noted that JAMPRO serves as the Secretariat for the National Competitiveness Council, which manages Jamaica’s business environment reform agenda, intended to ensure that businesses feel the difference that this undertaking is going to make for them.

“Already we see that they are feeling it, because Jamaica recently jumped four places in the [World Bank’s] Doing Business Report, to number 71 out of 140 countries,” she added.

Meanwhile, Richards said UNCTAD’s aim and role in advancing the iGuide “is really to support the Government in implementing Vision 2030 Jamaica as part of the UN’s overall development assistance framework”.

This, he noted, is being done in tandem with the other UN and international organisations in Jamaica.

“We know that it has been a difficult time for the region, according to the UNCTAD data, in terms of attracting foreign direct investments. But for Jamaica, I think these are very exciting times,” he said.

—JIS