JAMAICAN businesses are being urged to look to India as a market for their products as that country’s economy continues to expand with projections that it will be propelled, before the end of this decade, to being the third largest economy in the world, behind only the US and China.

Currently, bilateral trade between Jamaica and India is valued at around US$100 million, with the balance skewed in favour of the south Asian nation.

“But if you observe the last 10 years or the last five years of trade figures, it is growing incrementally, it is not stagnant. Last year, it was about $97 million and though the figures for the fiscal year ending in this past March are not yet available, it is likely to improve a little bit more,” Masakui Rungsung, the departing High Commissioner of India to Jamaica, told the Jamaica Observer in an interview late last month.

Rungsung cites issues such as the distance between Jamaica and India and the cost of trade between the two countries as factors which have inhibited any substantial two-way flow of goods.

But he said the merchandise trade figures mask the true picture of official trade between Jamaica and India because some goods arriving in Jamaica from India do so through third countries, such as the United States, and those goods are counted as part of re-exports from the US rather than exports from India.

But as India’s economy grows — it is expected to exceed the US economy by 2060 — Dushyant Savadia, chairman and CEO of the Amber Group of Companies, a tech firm, said the opportunities that are being created by “one of the largest consumer markets in the world” should not be lost on Jamaican businesses.

“In Jamaica we have music, we have coffee, we have spices and though India is known for its spices around the world, Jamaica can add its flavours to the spices to India, and also digital applications, that we can explore to sell products to India. Jamaica is also very strong with security as well. We have a phenomenal amount of security companies which have learnt in the most difficult circumstances to protect our citizens and to protect businesses, and that presents opportunities for them in India,” Savadia outlined to Caribbean Business Report.

“We as a country should look to boost bilateral trade so that we can reduce that trade deficit with India. Jamaica should look at what it can offer to India and use its high commissioner in New Dehli to push those products as well. Jamaica has unique propositions for India that we should exploit,” Savadia continued.

His own company, Amber Connect, just entered the Indian market by partnering with one of the country’s largest educational institutions — SSVM Institutions, a group of about eight schools — to supply its vehicle tracker, AI dashcam, and seat belt sensors for the first time in the subcontinent. The deal covers fleet management for hundreds of buses operated by SSVM Institutions.

Savadia said Jamaican businesses should muster the courage to explore non-traditional markets like India to diversify their target audience.

“India is pretty friendly when it comes to setting up business and infrastructure, etc. Most times, we think going outside into the world requires a lot of capital, but in the digital world, things have become a lot more simpler, and you can partner and grow through collaboration rather than trying to do it yourself,” he advised.

But things are in train to get more Jamaican businesses to consider the Indian market.

“I certainly share the view that India being the fastest growing large economy and then heading to being number three in the world in a short time, that it is a place that we have to go, which is why, I am taking another of my business missions to India in the first week of November,” Aubyn Hill, Jamaica’s minister of industry, investment and commerce, said in an interview with
Caribbean Business Report. “I want Jamaican businesses to understand that they too can do business in the fastest-growing major economy in the world,” he added. Hill said on that mission, he will be taking Jamaican businesspeople to New Dehli, Mumbai and Hyderabad in India. But he also has plans to explore other markets such as Japan, and various countries in Latin America and Africa.

And Indian businesses too are seeking more opportunities in Jamaica with a delegation of about 75 Indian businesses coming to Jamaica for an expo in early June. Most are in the information technology, knowledge process outsourcing and business process outsourcing sectors, but other businesses are also coming.

“This is one of the biggest delegations that we have seen coming to Jamaica from India,” Rungsung said. He also reminded that the Indian foreign minister announced last year that it will offer one business in each Caricom territory US$1 million worth of machinery made in India as a grant towards helping them to expand production and target the Indian market. Candidates are being assessed and the Government of Jamaica is to select one business for the grant before the end of this year.

“The health sector is another with huge potential to explore,” Rungsung continued. “Things are moving slow in this area but there are interests, though there are a lot of constraints,” he pointed out.

Rungsung said “many Indian corporates” want to set up a super-speciality hospital in Jamaica, similar to the Health City complex in the Cayman Islands.

“That development came here first before they went to Cayman Islands and it didn’t happen. I don’t know what were the issues, but even now there are still other corporates in the health sector who want to come here and set up a super-speciality hospital and one is already in discussions with the Government here, but I don’t know the details of the discussions,” Rungsung added.

He said the Indian Institute of Technology is also looking for opportunities, but poured cold water on the idea of Bollywood, the Indian film industry, seeing Jamaica as a market to make films because of various fees and little incentives compared to other locations.

Last year Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s tourism minister, cast an admiring eye on the Indian market for special focus, but when asked about the potential, Rungsung said the distance may present a barrier, adding that targeting Indians in the diaspora, in countries like the US, Canada and the UK, may bear early fruits while the groundwork is laid to go after tourists on the subcontinent.