THE Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro) is driving Jamaica’s export potential by finding new markets while supporting growing companies to find overseas markets through its Export Max programme.

New markets, such as South America, Central India and China are being looked into by the organisation, and structuring e-commerce platforms in a way that can boost exports in existing markets in the United States is being worked on through the programme which is coming to the end of its third year and entering its fourth.

“We’re in the process of looking at the companies that we can put all the resources around that we can help to grow and expand their business,” said Shane Angus, interim vice-president of exports at Jampro, while revealing export strategies at a recent Jamaica Observer Business forum last Wednesday.

Adding to the discussion was the vice-president of investment and linkages (a new department within Jampro) Norman Naar, who explained that each year, a cohort of 50 businesses are helped with capacity building.

“This year we’re looking at 60 new businesses, along with capacity building, along with taking them to market,” he said.

A part of the new push to drive exports is to tap into Amazon, ebay and Caribshopper to access more of the existing US market.

“We are actually working on an e-commerce platform to see how we can get our products in. One thing we’re looking at, especially for the US side, we’re working on a fulfilment centre,” said Angus.

He further added that research is now underway to determine how to expand that network of fulfilment centres to reach different markets in the various countries that Jamaica is already selling to.

While Jampro is aiming to see more businesses enter international markets, Naar revealed that although take-up of these online portals has been high for those businesses that are ready to export including small-scale exports, Jampro is now facing a challenge with measuring the impacts of exports. In addition, the lack of awareness of the potential that presents for businesses provide some resistance to taking up opportunities created by Jampro.

“You no longer have to export huge quantities, you can export typically small quantities, so the whole production, warehousing that goes with that, all the cost associated with that, you no longer have to go through that,” said Naar. He further added that “through the Government, Jampro does this for many organisation free of cost but we need to have a greater awareness of these services that we do free of cost.”

In adding to the benefits of utilising e-commerce platforms, Angus said it comes with less interaction and challenges getting paid by distributors will decline as payments are made and received instantaneously. He further revealed different opportunities within existing markets that are being looked into to boost exports. One such is looking at new markets for limestones.

“Normally, we know it as just construction but now we’ve identified new areas such as agriculture where limestone is huge in the US, probably just as large as construction,” said Angus.

He added that Jampro is now facilitating a new player that could potentially help the country to drive those exports. Although the team at Jampro did not disclose who the investor is, they said the quality of limestone locally is gaining attention globally and expects the packaging of limestone to interest more investors.

“We are getting some traction around the interest in limestone and it is substantiated by package efforts, so we are well on the way with at least one significant investor,” Naar said while nudging the Business Observer to watch the space for updates.

In fostering more companies to become exporters, Jampro will also be implementing and executing Export Max Plus. According to Naar, that programme will be looking at some of the large exporters to specifically understand their issues and how Jampro can support them with government intervention to help those entities to make export easier.

The president of Jampro Shullet Cox reminded the Business Observer that the Export Max Plus programme is in line with one of the mandates of the entity, which is policy advocacy and business reform.

“It’s really about understanding what bureaucratic challenges there are in government that need to be addressed in order to make the flow of business happen faster and that’s something we’re going to be working with our ministry a lot closer to identify those challenges and remove those challenges” Cox said, which she believes is hindering the export potential of companies.