THE launch of the EXIM Bank/JMEA e-Commerce Funder last Friday was celebrated as a “glorious partnership” of stakeholders coming together to support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and provide them with opportunities to export.

The e-Commerce Funder is a financial solution created through a partnership between the National Export-Import Bank (EXIM Bank) and the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA) that allows small business operators in the productive sector to access loans to support web-based commercial activities. On Friday both organisations launched the product with the signing of a memorandum of understanding.

With the e-Commerce Funder, MSMEs can access up to 80 per cent of financing or a maximum of $5 million to create and launch their e-commerce platforms. They will have up to five years to repay the loan, which attracts interest of five per cent per annum.

Among the areas covered by the loan are domain registration, hosting services, server setup, product shots, inventory management, working capital, and the development and programming of e-commerce platforms.

According to EXIM Bank Managing Director Lisa Bell, the e-Commerce Funder creates the platform and provides the support to allow local MSME producers to access markets that they previously could not.

“There is a glaring opportunity for exports and to allow MSMEs to export more. [So] our role at EXIM is to provide the funding to support that export because there are nuances associated with mobilising that chain that requires money,” Bell stated.

“So we provide the financing from pre-production to what we call post-shipment,” she continued.

On the other hand, she said, the JMEA, which has been a long-held partner of the EXIM Bank, is helping MSMES to understand the nuances of the e-commerce arena and mobilising them to export. One example of this, Bell mentioned, is JMEA’s Project Amazon, which provided training workshops to some 20 MSMEs through OnPointe Consultants.

“So we have the money and you have the clients, so it is a glorious partnership, and it is one of the many partnerships we’ve had with the JMEA over the years,” the EXIM managing director noted.

“Export Max [from Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro)] is here. They’re working on the development of the MSMEs, mobilising 50 to 60 companies to reach that level, but it requires partnership to work. They’re doing the promotion side, you’re [JMEA] doing the development side, [EXIM Bank is] doing the financing side. When [we] come together, that’s when change happens,” she added.

In the same vein, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce Sancia Bennett Templar related that in a recent MSME forum there were calls to bring together the various stakeholders that provide support to businesses in the productive sector who engage in export.

“One of the discussions we had…is the need to pull all of this together into one virtual space so that all persons who are interested in financing, all persons who are interested in small business support, people that are interested in information on business, and see what support and facilities are available and, indeed, both public and private sectors can go to that virtual space and find out all of that information,” she said.

A virtual space of this kind, she explained, would complement the National Business Portal being managed by Jampro. And while the portal is now operational as an information hub, the permanent secretary disclosed that “within the next few months, certainly the beginning of next year, we will begin” to facilitate transactions with the Government of Jamaica.

Speaking on behalf of JMEA, Executive Director Kamesha Blake congratulated the EXIM Bank team for being proactive in developing products to drive growth and competitiveness in manufacturing and export.

“As the leading business development organisation, with a mandate to advocate and technically support its members, the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association is pleased to sign this memorandum of understanding with EXIM to address access to finance and endorse the e-Commerce Funder being launched today,” she said while appealing to members to make export a core of their businesses.