MONTEGO BAY, St James — Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Pearnel Charles Jr, believes that in a few years, the Dwight Crawford-chaired Build Expo will become an international forum.

“I am looking forward to the Build Conference and Expo being on the global schedule in the next couple of years.

“Three weeks ago, I was in Macau, China at their infrastructure forum which is a global forum. And I don’t see why we can’t have an international build conference and expo that invites persons all the way from China, from India and from Russia to come right here in Montego Bay,” Charles Jr argued.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the third annual staging of Build Expo, held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall from Friday, June 21 to Sunday, June 23.

The three-day event, which saw a mix of conference speakers, building practitioners and industry specialists, climaxed with a one-bedroom studio apartment, constructed from hempcrete, presented to a lucky participant.

“Perhaps the discussion on the hempcrete will be the kind of catalyst that we need to inject that energy and interest so that we can start understanding and expanding our minds beyond the unusual. If you do the same things over and over, you are going to get the same results,” Charles Jr said.

Hempcrete is a bio-composite material, a mixture of hemp hurds and lime used for construction and insulation.

For his part, Crawford is looking forward to the event being considered among the best in the Caribbean in the near future.

“I declare that soon Build Expo will be ranked among the best building and construction expos in the region, filling hotel rooms with visitors and creating a buzz of activities for our local entrepreneurs,” Crawford said.

“We have realised that most other expos have much of a blend and we realise that the building industry has never had an expo that has been focused directly on the industry, and all the industry players, so what the exhibitors here will find is that the minute somebody steps through that door, they come about the building industry. And that’s what Build Expo is all about”.

Charles Jnr described Crawford as “a young leader in our country who is doing what we need Jamaicans to do, taking risks, taking the steps forward and taking the time to put together what is required to make Jamaica a place that braces investment”.