KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) Chairman, Senator Don Wehby, said the agency’s new board of directors will be focusing on pivoting the agency’s economic development activities into the selected priority sectors of agribusiness, digital services and manufacturing, as Jamaica seeks to rebound from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and build back a more diversified economy.

The new board of directors, which met for the first time on Thursday, January 21 consists of private and public sector leaders with experience in a variety of sectors, including agribusiness, outsourcing, tourism, manufacturing, creative industries and banking.

Senator Wehby said this experience in a wide range of industries would serve well in leading the agency in its transformation to a sales and marketing led agency and in the development of action plans and policy advocacy to stimulate transformation of the business environment.

The agency said that it has started the year running, with a full slate of activities in the three focus sectors and in key programme areas. It noted that the board expressed full commitment to the innovative public-private Export Max III Programme, focused on building the export capacity of 50 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are now ready to leverage e-commerce and market penetration activities. 

Senator Wehby emphasised that it was critical for the agency to move with urgency, as projections have noted that economic recovery should start globally in 2022, as the outlook for FDI trends for 2021 remain weak.

Wehby explained that Jamaica should be positioned to capitalise on current developments such as the need to secure more food sources and increased digital services, and other expected opportunities that could materialise in upcoming months. 

“JAMPRO’s board of directors and executive is united in the belief that while the pandemic has presented a setback, Jamaica still has a myriad of economic growth opportunities that have not been fully explored. It is our goal to identify and target these real opportunities and to use this time to pursue activities that will position Jamaica as the place to do business regionally, and in so doing, propel the island’s economic recovery. With this aggressive and more focused approach, we are optimistic that we will not only see an improvement in the performance of key sectors, but growth in the overall economy,” the JAMPRO chairman said.