Businessman Metry Seaga says the novel coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis should push Jamaica to maximise its greatest asset which, according to him, is not tourism or agricultural products, but rather the country’s location in the Americas.

“If COVID and this war have taught us anything, it is that we have got to be self-sustainable. We have to create industries that will allow us to serve ourselves. I recognise we can’t make everything in Jamaica, but Jamaica has the opportunity of its greatest asset which we have never used in the past. Some people think it’s sun, some think it’s coffee and banana, beaches. It’s not. Our greatest asset is our location in the Americas,” the former Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association president said.

“We need to develop our economy as a global logistics economy, we need large companies to be producing their goods here. Even if we import the raw material, we need to be producing here. We need to identify the products that we need to sustain ourselves and have them start being manufactured here,” Seaga said.

Seaga — who was speaking last Thursday during a webinar put on by the Jamaica Institution of Engineers (JIE) to explore the impact of the Ukraine war on the construction, energy, and manufacturing sectors — said Jamaica should model Singapore in this respect.

“I had the opportunity to visit Singapore about six years ago and they are the largest supplier of a coffee drink to the world. They don’t have a single cow, they don’t have a single stalk of sugar cane and they don’t have a single bean of coffee growing there but they import all those things into the hub, and they add value there. To me, that is how we have to start building our economy; as a global logistics-centred economy around which we can start to manufacture, add value, produce the things here that we need,” he mooted.

“And oil or derivatives of oil may be just one of those things. Going back to the cost increase, if we start to do that it will bring our costs down locally and that’s how we get security,” Seaga argued.

In the meantime, he said, the manufacturing sector has seen some positives over the two and a half years of the pandemic and the more than 30 days since the start of the Ukraine war. Jamaica, he said, must capitalise on the crisis.

“We have seen people coming to us from as far afield as the west coast of the United States and nearer who would traditionally buy out of China, and with all that’s happening with COVID-19, with the war, the uncertainty that surrounds doing business from so far away has led people back to us, has let people realise that they need to look at solutions that are closer to home,” Seaga told the forum.

“I think we need to take advantage of these opportunities. I think we need to gain customers that we previously didn’t have an opportunity to speak to. Treat them so well and give them service that they are not accustomed to and keep them for life. There are opportunities in this crisis, and we need to make sure and follow through on them,” he declared.

Glaister Ricketts, president of the JIE, said since engineers operate in every facet of the Jamaican economy, there was a need to plan ahead to avoid a black swan effect (unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences).

“The work that we do requires the availability of critical raw materials and services. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia… continues even now without anyone knowing how or when it will end,” he said, noting that Russia and Ukraine were, up to recently, two of the leading suppliers of goods and services to the world market.

“Between them both they were the second largest suppliers of crude oil, the third-largest supplier of wheat and a significant supplier of metals, minerals, and highly qualified workers in digital engineering and IT skills. With these commodities and services not available to the market because of the embargo or other factors, Jamaica will be affected directly and indirectly,” Ricketts stated.

Meanwhile, Lenworth Kelly, president of the Integrated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica, said the silver lining for the industry, which was “battered” last year by the unprecedented spikes in the cost of lumber and steel imports, has been what is produced locally.

“There is a sound argument to be made to bolster local production as best as possible because when they come from other markets, that market protects itself first… that source market will take care of themselves first. We are still the land of wood as far as I am aware and we need to have a plan to go back to the planting of lumber trees and invest in insurance policy,” Kelly stated.