The United States has very deep and sophisticated capital markets which allow companies to fund projects many years into the future, thereby driving growth. The single biggest advantage Jamaica has over its Caribbean and Central American neighbours is a vibrant domestic capital market, although, perhaps understandably, it is much less forward-looking.

As stated in the editorial of the Jamaica Observer yesterday, “the JSE matters to us all”, and one of the most important innovations in mobilising capital for domestic entrepreneurs in decades was our Junior Market, launched under former Finance Minister Audley Shaw in 2009, and “saved” by him on his return in 2016.

The linchpin of our capital market is, however, the main Jamaica Stock Exchange, as without its corporate capital our large corporate debt market and even bank debt financing would be much lower.

Jamaica has had a stock market since 1969, and for nearly two decades every year it has had an annual stock market conference, the first being held at Half Moon in 2006, under the leadership of its long-standing Managing Director Mrs Marlene Street-Forrest, who became general manager in 2004.

Yesterday evening, the latest stock market conference opened under the theme ‘Safeguarding the Capital Markets: People, Opportunities and Progress’ with speakers that include Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness; Angus Young, the new Trinidadian CEO of NCB Capital markets which is a regular and key sponsor; and ‘Caribbean bond king’ Gregory Fisher representing US investment bank Jefferies.

One of the conference openers from its inception, Fisher made a presentation on ‘The World Economy – Opportunities and Threats in 2025 and beyond’. It is as timely as it gets, coming just as a new US Administration takes power, which may be as consequential for the Caribbean as the arrival of the Reagan Administration in 1981.

This was a missed opportunity from a growth perspective, as then President Ronald Reagan sent David Rockefeller to Jamaica (who had what was then the best “black book” of business contacts in the United States), but for a variety of reasons we did not take advantage of that opportunity.

Prime Minister Holness’s presentation, titled ‘Fuelling economic development by fostering a pro-business environment’ came two months after his policy address to the nation last November, titled ‘Growth – the Next Chapter’.

In that address he signalled his Administration’s “pivot from stability to growth”, stating that there was no need for a new study, as the key pillars of his growth strategy were based on the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s ‘Growth Inducement Strategy’ developed between 2010 and 2012; the Economic Growth Council 2016 roadmap, chaired by Michael Lee Chin; and the COVID Economic Recovery Task Force, chaired by former Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke.

While largely true, an update of our 1996 ‘National Industrial Policy’ and Donald Harris’s 1997 ‘Jamaica’s Export Economy: Towards a Strategy of Export-Led Growth’ are also overdue in the new world environment.

Emphasising execution, the prime minister stated, “The time for talk has passed – the time for action is now”. This call for action, of course, has occurred many times in the Caribbean, and was most recently a core theme of the recent Afriexim Bank conference in The Bahamas, which had followed the conferences in other major Caribbean countries that have signed an agreement with them, first Barbados and then Guyana.

One important point to note is that Afriexim, which started life as a trade bank supporting intra-regional trade in Africa, has performed much better than its parent, the African Development Bank, due to its innovative public private partnership model, which now includes a global listing.

A “time for action” approach could include a close look at it as a model for development banks across the region, including particularly our own in Jamaica. A starting point for this “fresh look” would be to update my 2006 paper ‘A New Approach to Development Banking in Jamaica’ by incorporating into it the Afriexim partnership model, and reviewing its appendix ‘A Caribbean Stock Exchange – Charting the way forward’.

In November, the prime minister had argued his strategy rests on five pillars, the first rightly being human capital development.

The second pillar was industry diversification, including greater tourism linkages, the logistics hub, medical tourism, and promoting our creative industries, including music, film and sports. The prime minister is also correct to emphasise digitisation, and may want to look back at the Inter-American Development Dank-funded local centre modelled off Estonia.

The third is infrastructure investment, which has indeed increased sharply under the current Administration, reflecting greater fiscal space due to lower debt service — along with the needs, of course, due to climate change, etc. He also announced his intention to launch a Private/Public Partnership infrastructure investment fund designed to mobilise financing from pension funds and insurance companies.

The fourth pillar is the perennial need to improve the ease, speed, and cost of doing business, where he articulated the need for an Efficiency Programme Oversight Committee (another EPOC). The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce has a longstanding “legs and regs” committee for that purpose, while other Es could include energy reform and equity promotion.

In the latter case, an “equity” EPOC committee could work on his other objectives including how to incentivise the repatriation of businesses — activities, associated assets and profits to Jamaica, the associated abolition of the double taxation of dividends, the introduction of accelerated capital allowances and the reform of the urban renewal tax credit — a simple approach is new money for an abandoned property gets a matching tax credit.

In short, the creation of a true national capitalist (meaning entrepreneurial) class in Jamaica, as carefully outlined by Sir Arthur Lewis in the 1950s — a vision existing from at least the 1930s — is as long overdue as Marcus Garvey’s pardon last Sunday. The countries of the Far East, the latest being China, successively adopted the development strategy of this still insufficiently acknowledged noble laureate, whose message was never really accepted in his own region, at our great development cost.

Those who want to know more can attend Mark Figueroa’s lecture ‘Lessons for the Caribbean from China’s Success Along a Lewis Path’ at UWI’s Regional Headquarters this evening.