The special $600-million low cost credit facility from the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) involved in export is now available for on-lending.

State minister for Industry, Commerce, Agriculture &; Fisheries, Floyd Green, who made the announcement, said the interest rate is a low 4.75 per cent, which is the lowest rate on offer to the MSME any government or private sector funding institution. Describing the move as a step in the right direction, Minister Green argued that the low 4.75 per cent interest rate should send a signal to private lending institutions in Jamaica that loans to MSMEs should be lowered to this level.

Addressing Jampro’s Export Max 111 Singing and Orientation Exercise at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Tuesday, the state minister also spoke about the redesigned Credit Enhancement Facility by the Development Bank of Jamaica in which $5 billion will be on-lent to MSMEs over the next 12 months. He used these two credit facilities to highlight the fact that the Government is seriously addressing the need in giving MSMEs more access to credit at reasonable interest rates.

OVER BUREACRATIC EXPORT PROCESS

Turning to the issue of export, Minister Green admitted that Jamaica has over bureaucratised its export process, disclosing that only last week the Government removed 26 bureaucratic steps to export, which were adding no value.

“Quite frankly we have over bureaucratised our processes around trade for far too long…last week I had a meeting with Ministry of Health, National Environment and Planning Agency, Trade Board team and one of the things I highlighted is that we have some steps in our processes that we think is adding value that is absolutely not adding value,” Green reasoned.

He gave an example where there are some secondary stems in the export process, which is dependent on the first step, such as a letter and/or a form being given by an initial agency, arguing that in such a scenario there is no need for the secondary step.

According to Green, “people go to the initial agency they get the letter and the form and they go to the secondary agency, which asked them for the letter or the form and when they show them the letter and the form that give rise to the secondary process; it makes no sense.”

The junior minister remarked that the Government is moving to remove those unnecessary secondary bureaucratic steps, which adds no value, noting that so far 26 such steps have been identified to be removed. “We are removing the time it takes to get our exports out of the country,” Green told the large gathering, which includes the representatives of 48 MSMEs, inclusive of businesses from the creative and cannabis industries, drafted in Export Max 111

The Export Max programme, which was launched in 2011 as a pilot to assist MSMEs with growing their export sales, achieved 31 per cent growth in foreign sales for the 15 participants in the first staging. The second staging achieved 213 per cent growth from the 20 odd companies that participated.

Jampro is projecting a three-fold growth for the 48 participants in Export Max 111, which will run for the next three years. The companies will receive support for capacity-building, export market development and penetration, promotional activities, monitoring, and evaluation.

Jampro has received $64 million in funding for its third staging of the Export Max programme. Of the $64 million, the Planning Institute of Jamaica has committed US$300,000 ($40 million), while $6 million will be provided in kind from the Bureau of Standards for participants utilising calibration, chemical testing, microbiology, metrology services, packaging and labelling services.