Download short term objectives

JAMAICA COALITION OF SERVICES
INDUSTRIES
Jamaica’s strategy for increasing
services exports to the FCORs/OCTs:
Ms. Marjorie Straw, Jamaica
Coalition of Services Industries
Introduction
• Jamaica has many competitive edges that
could be exploited through trade with the
FCORs
– Low cost labour
– Resourceful people
– Fairly large population
– Excellent weather
– Cultural strength
– Sporting successes
Services Trends in Jamaica
• There has been a growth in trade in
services in Jamaica over the years.
Obviously Tourism dominates.
• Services as a percentage of GDP in
Jamaica has been approximately 70%
over the last ten years. This continues to
reinforce how important services are to the
economy.
Structure of Presentation
• This presentation will examine six areas in
which Jamaica could successfully export
services and related products to the FCOR
and to France and Mainland EU.
• The six areas are:
– Education services
– Customer service training
– Fashion and related products and services
– ICT
– Film
– Renewable Energy and related services
EDUCATION
• Foster intercultural exchanges.
• Jamaica’s unique cultural richness, reggae and
sports heritage
 ESL  Immersion Programmes
 Student exchanges with Universities.
FASHION
• Conduct a mission to examine the French influence
and the French Caribbean nexxus on fashion.
• Shopping Tourism that would encourage trips to
Jamaica to take advantage of lower price points on
apparel.
• Export garments to the FCOR markets such as
swimwear.
• Jamaica represents a cheaper option.
ICT
• Offer back office support due to lower labour costs.
• Enter into joint ventures or collaborate to offer
back office processing that does not require oral
language. Examples could be the processing of
international credit card and similar types of
transactions.
• Processing of large volumes of documents.
• global IT off-shoring market is very large and there
is an increase in demand for services such as
hosting services, E-Learning, home security
systems, and networking management systems,
which do not depend on the spoken language.
FILM
• Share locations
• Do production and editing in Jamaica where there
is a cost advantage and some spectacular sites
and scenery e.g. Dunns River Falls and the Blue
Mountains.
• Hire production personnel
• The development of vibrant local television and
video production sectors with export possibilities
• Collaborate to share knowledge and skills.
TOURISM CUSTOMER
SERVICES TRAINING
• Jamaica is a leading tourism destination with
strong customer service industry.
• Exchange programmes – hotel chains, HEART
Hospitality Training School.
• Exchange with BSOs/hotels to learn best practices
in the business.
TOURISM
• Multi destination tourism where visitors to
Martinique can “hop over” to Jamaica for unique
tourism adventures – Mystic Mountain, Eco tours,
Dolphin Cove etc.,
Renewable Energy
Guadeloupe has a lot of expertise in various forms of
renewable energy with examples of each type
actually supplying their national grid.
Jamaica can take advantage of Guadeloupe’s
experience/expertise.
Guadeloupe and the rest of the FCOR can take
advantage of the relatively low cost of labour in
Jamaica to manufacture and export (solar panels,
etc) to markets where labour is more expensive such
as France and the rest of the EU.
Other services identified as
having potential in Jamaica
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Accounting and auditing
Financial services
Health & Wellness
Architecture (recently acquired a MRA)
Transport – Jamaica has a very good
transshipment port. So goods from other
countries could be consolidated or broken
into smaller quantities and sent to FCOR.
Thank You