SMALL Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ), now in its 50th year of existence, said it will be moving with great alacrity to bring more of those informal players in the business community to the formal sector.

Newly elected president of SBAJ Garnett Reid, speaking with the Jamaica Observer in an interview on Monday, said that with over 400,000 registered small businesses now operating locally, there are thousands more on the periphery, which he wants to bring to formality.

“Lots of informal businesses continue to operate out there and we will be focusing heavily on that in this new financial year. We’ll be targeting a lot of these operators islandwide with an aim to bring them out of informality. A number of these businesses are making a lot of money, but they also need the requisite training and support to get them to even higher levels of growth,” he told the Business Observer.

“It has been through the SBAJ’s continued advocacy and training that we were able to have helped a lot of the once-informal businesses to become formalised. We have taught them how to develop business plans, open bank accounts, file various tax returns, and many of the other things which have helped us to transition more of these businesses. There is still lots more left to be done, and we will continue to lobby for the sector as we push to bring more players over on the formal side. There is hundreds of millions being made in the informal sector and we want to capitalise on it,” Reid said.

With plans afoot to host a one-day conference sometime early next year, the president said SBAJ wants to bring together all players and stakeholders in one space so as to bridge the divide as it fills out gaps and addresses deficiencies in the ecosystem. Through knowledge and empowerment sessions, the body also wants to sensitise more of these informal players as it seeks to equip them with the needed tools while connecting them to different sources of success.

“At this event we’re going to have the TAJ, Companies Office, NIS, and all the other important agencies through which we will target informal businesses. We plan to bring everybody from the different parishes as we get them together to commence discussions on how we can bring them to the formal sector. In bringing them over, everybody stands to benefit as Government will get their respective taxes and the players will be connected to a much larger support system,” Reid said.

The small business community, often plagued by a number of issues including lack of access to financing, onerous bureaucratic procedures and government red tape, continues to cite these challenges among chief pain points for which they seek urgent redress. Despite a number of past and modern-day shocks, however — including the financial crisis of the 90s, the novel coronavirus pandemic, and high interest rates more recently — the sector continues to be resilient as it builds up a solid base for members.

According to Reid, the newly installed SBAJ Administration, in addressing many of the long-standing concerns, will this year — through its main focus and training agenda — also move to touch on new areas including e-commerce, sustainability practices, and artificial intelligence.

As SBAJ celebrates its golden legacy, the large body which has been instrumental in the growth and development of small businesses since 1974 said it will continue to work towards realising its vision through which it seeks to become “an organisation of national, regional and international impact with economic, social and political advocacy, while being the voice of the small business sector in Jamaica”.

For the year-long celebrations which are set to run up until November 2025, the entity is now getting ready to undertake a series of projects, trainings, expos and conferences as it looks to strengthen operations and offer more support and advocacy to this important sector.

As an incubator for other powerful umbrella groups such as Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC), and MSME Alliance, the non-profit entity founded by a group of business people and headed by business and insurance sector mogul the late R Danny Williams, will — in its quest for the next 50 years — also seek to empower more small business owners to thrive in this evolving economy.

“This is my third month as president and we will be going on a retreat from which we should come back with a comprehensive plan of action that will, for the next two years, guide us in how we move the sector forward as we help to deliver more growth and development for micro, small and medium-size businesses,” Reid said.

“Small businesses are largely the primary engine of growth in an economy and locally. We not only provide high levels of employment but also deliver approximately $15 billion in taxes to Government annually, and so it is only fair that we are given the necessary attention. Though some things have started to improve and the future looks promising for us, there is still much more that needs to be done and we will be working with all stakeholders to bring more growth opportunities for our small businesses,” he added.