KINGSTON, Jamaica— Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Floyd Green, is urging existing and potential mining operators to place greater focus on innovation, value addition and sustainability.

“Part of the complaint with some of our historical minerals and the things that we’ve mined for years is that we haven’t focused on carrying it to the finished product, and as such, we haven’t retained enough of the dollars that are spent on the finished product,” Green said.

He was addressing Tuesday’s Minerals Sector Investment Forum, held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.

The minister encouraged operators to diversify sources of construction materials.

He explained that hard volcanic rocks are an option, as they promote sustainable development and would reduce reliance on river-based resources.

“Significant work has been done in Jamaica about our geology, so we do know that we have these items in significant quantities, but we need more of our companies to be looking into quarrying hard volcanic rocks,” Green said.

The forum formed part of National Minerals Week, which is being observed under the theme ‘Minerals for a Sustainable Tomorrow: Shaping our Future’.

“We believe that there are opportunities to partner our limestone sector with what we need to do to mitigate… climate change and to limestone quarry for specific purposes, especially purposes such as coastal defences. It’s very important, as we see rising sea levels, that we look at how we are setting up these barriers to ensure that some of our low-lying towns and capitals are protected,” the minister said.

Meanwhile, Green pointed out that the minerals sector is critical to Jamaica’s growth and development.

“The mining sector is the cornerstone of our economy. For the two per cent growth that we had last year in our GDP (gross domestic product), our mining sector contributed 1.1 per cent,” he said.

Green further shared that the sector is responsible for about 80 per cent of Jamaica’s earnings from traditional exports.

“Last year, our earnings amounted to over US$325 million from the exportation through our mining sector; so again, it has proven to be a really strong driving force for growth and prosperity. Thankfully, we saw the rebound of alumina exportation last year with Jamalco coming back on stream, and we have seen significant increases – in fact, over 300 per cent increase in our limestone exportation during last year,” he informed.

-JIS