Prime Minister Andrew Holness (centre) and Dr. Nigel Clarke (right) watch Russell Hadeed, chairman of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), insert the Wigton Windfarm Limited strip on the Jamaica Stock Exchange’s Listing Board, last month
In an article dated March 18, 2016 in the Jamaica Observer ‘Equity is the key to Jamaica’s economic turnaround’, I argued that Jamaica was still badly in need of a turnaround, and that more equity was the key to Jamaica’s economic turnaround, the other main issue being better governance. “Macroeconomic stabilisation is not enough. There is a huge shortage of equity capital, particularly for the industries that don’t yet, but could exist in Jamaica.”
Next week the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) is hosting a seminar “Delivering Economic Growth through Partnerships: Financing Regional Infrastructure, SME and Innovation” on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 11 – 12, with experienced practitioners and private sector investors from Canada, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas, amongst others, to discuss how to generate growth through infrastructure development and private equity, and including an additional alternative session for small and medium-sized enterprises on entrepreneurship and innovation.
This is the fifth such seminar that the DBJ is hosting, and builds on the successes of previous ones that were held in 2013, 2014, 2016 and again in 2017, when the conference expanded through a strategic partnership between the Jamaica Venture Capital Programme and the Public Private Partnerships and Privatisation Division of the DBJ.
Pernell P Charles Jr, the minister without portfolio in the ministry of economic Growth and Job Creation, and Michael Lee-Chin, Jamaican-Canadian business magnate will deliver keynote presentations at the conference’s official opening and cocktail reception on the evening of Monday, June 10.
In my 2016 article, I had observed “One of the answers is to encourage venture capital — a term broadly used here to include private equity (also infrastructure funds), as well as some junior stock exchange companies. Other measures to promote equity development include privatisation, and the more attractive employee share ownership schemes (ESOPs).”
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