Jamaica to leverage its special economic zone to Guyana

Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 September 2024, 22:07 by Writer

Minister of Industry, Investment, & Commerce, Aubyn Hill

Jamaica is eyeing the possibility of leveraging its special economic zone (SEZ) to cash in on Guyana’s oil sector by offering logistics services due to the shallow-draught of Port Georgetown, that island’s Minister of Industry, Investment, & Commerce, Aubyn Hill said Wednesday. 

With 11.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent to be extracted and Guyana’s lack of capacity to accommodate large vessels with heavy cargo, Mr Hill said Jamaica would be positioning itself to offer such services to the oil-rich South American nation. 

“The draught in Guyana – Port Georgetown – is 4 to 6 metres. You can’ take big ships in there so where it must come from? Kingston: The special economic zone. You guys get together, talk it up, make sure people invest because all the break bulk will have to happen here in Kingston,” he told a weekly post-cabinet news conference.

Mr Hill did not discount some of the large shipments to Guyana happening in Florida but said Jamaica needed to make every effort to position itself for the Guyana market. “We need to get that done as a growth area,” he said.

He said after certain legislation is passed, Jamaica would be offering services that Guyana’s oil sector needs. “We have the skills that they don’t now have,” he said, projecting that Guyana’s population would triple in another five years “because the money is coming in (and) we must be there.”

With that island’s banana and bauxite industry having declined, he said Jamaica now had to transform some of its real estate into becoming a logistics hub. “We have to use land well. Land is right next to the port,” he said.

The Jamaican Minister said his country was on a drive to further expand its services sector to other Caribbean nations, with inroads already being made in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and the Dominican Republic. The prospects, he said, also looked good in Colombia. 

The country also wants to export large quantities of ackee, mangoes and breadfruit flour which is gluten-free, he said.

On account of Jamaica’s small per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of just below US$7,000 and low prospects of the population doubling to 6 million in another 25 to 30 years, he said his country needed to capitalise on foreign markets. “If we have a small per capita GDP and we have a small population, the only way we are going to grow is if we go and find foreign markets,” he said.