CHIEF executive officer of Honey Bun Limited, Michelle Chong has added her voice to those calling for a more structured data-driven focus on the development of Jamaica’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) agrees.
According to Chong, SMEs contribute significantly to the local economy yet there is no solid data on the sector’s contribution to GDP or to export.
But director general of the PIOJ Dr Wayne Henry says the level of informality in the sector makes providing accurate data a challenge.
“As a policy initiative, as a country, we have to find ways to incentivise formality to make persons who are informal and below the radar want to come on the radar,” Henry told a Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday.
“The high degree of informality hurts to a certain extent,” admitted Henry, noting that the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), which is mandated to collect, compile, analyse, abstract, and publish statistical information relating to all sections of the economy, would be pressed to provide the data on SMEs.
Henry was supported by Nyasha Garraway, director of the Marco-economy and Trade Unit at the PIOJ, who said the agency was looking at other ways to get the data.
“We too do have a challenge with the lack of data of MSMEs and so we try to find creative ways to garner this data. So if, for example, STATIN cannot provide us with the level of information we want, it requires establishing relationships with other agencies,” Garraway told Observer editors and reporters.
Leave A Comment