Aubyn Hill | Tony Hylton is searching for relevance

Early in the second quarter of 2022, I received the first trade numbers from STATIN, about three months after my arrival at the Ministry of Industry Investment and Commerce (MIIC). In 2021, Jamaica imported over US$5.9 billion and exported only over US$1.4 billion, which resulted in a whopping deficit of US$4.9 billion.

The figures were stark, and the trade deficit gave me a real wake-up call. I engaged our researchers at the ministry to provide me with the export and import trade figures for Jamaica from 1960. The trade data confirmed that up to then, 60 of the 61 years of Jamaica’s independence recorded negative and relentlessly growing trade balances. Only one of those 61 years of independence had produced a positive trade balance, and that was way back in 1966.

DATA-DRIVEN POLICY

In his desperate search for relevance, shadow opposition People’s National Party (PNP) spokesman on industry, Anthony Hylton, made the quite ridiculous claim in an opinion piece published in The Sunday Gleaner of December 8 that I simply added the word ‘export’ into agency programmes.

Not so, Tony. The policy guided by the export imperative, had its foundation in the real and perennially negative trade balances as outlined in the data above. But that was not all. In arriving at a data-driven rationale, I injected the fact that Jamaica has less than three million people, and our birth rate of 1.9 per cent is lower than the internationally recognised replacement birth rate of 2.1 per cent. At this rate, our population is not going to record significant growth in the medium and long term.

Jamaica’s per capita GDP is less than US$7,000, which makes us a relatively poor country compared to Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Guyana, and Grenada. With such a relatively small population and small per capita GDP, Jamaica will never become a rich country selling to only its own population. We must absolutely find new attractive markets while we work at expanding current ones.

Sound data analysis, clear thinking, and hard work went into making and executing the export imperative policy of the ministry. Hylton would, very likely, not understand the kind of intellectual rigour and hard work we put into developing this policy using empirical data from over 60 years.

SCANDAL AND EMBARRASSMENT

It is unbelievable that Mr Hylton had the temerity to mention logistics as a missed opportunity. Many Jamaicans still remember the fiasco and embarrassment that he brought on to the then PNP government when he went very public with an announcement that investors Krauck Gruppe, Krauck Systems and Anchor Finance Group had an interest in investing US$5 billion in Jamaica’s Global Logistics Hub Initiative. The press compressed the name to Krauck-Anchor, and as soon as the national scandal erupted, Jamaicans quickly converted it to Crown and Anchor - a gambler’s game.

The announcement was big and broad. How big? The total Jamaican Government budget for the year (2015) was US$6.9 billion (J$808.4 billion). The scandal that erupted around the hapless Mr Hylton, who was then the portfolio minister, was huge and pervasive.

The press headlines were corrosive but conveyed the sad tale. Here is a sample: “Logistics committee concerned about prospective investors” The Gleaner, June 3, 2015; “Whither Minister Hylton after this logistics hub fiasco?” Jamaica Observer; “Cabinet Rejects Krauck, Anchor Again Hylton” Nationwide 90 FM, June 17, 2015; “Hylton‘s premature ejaculation – That $5b memorandum of misunderstanding” The Gleaner, June 25, 2015.

There was a quite unbearable stench of bumbling incompetence swirling around the scandal-covered Tony Hylton - the same one who is now searching for political relevance by bloviating in the newspaper.

Bad, scandalous, and embarrassing past performance is not a positive indicator of good future performance. As was recently announced by Professor Gordon Shirley of the Port Authority of Jamaica, the GOJ is about to start the de-risking buildout of the Caymanas Special Economic Zone.

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION

I am beginning to believe that Mr Hylton wrote his article without doing even a modicum of research. I have given dozens of speeches in which I have outlined to the private sector and wider Jamaican society the seven business missions I have led in the past two years. I have also explained in great detail the reasons for taking young business persons on these missions.

Since we cannot become a rich country by selling to only our local Jamaican population (it hasn’t happened in 62 years of independence), we must take business persons to overseas markets. We cannot sit in our offices - private sector and government – and secure large, new markets and customers. That, Mr Hylton, is the best kind of collaboration. Private companies and persons who pay their own airfare, hotels, ground transportation, and food costs - in search for new customers in new markets and led by the MIIC and its agencies.

I took as many as 73 persons in one of the three missions to Guyana. Only about five or six were from the Government. The business persons expressed the belief that the expenditure was well worth it. At least two Jamaican businesses have expanded to Guyana, and many ICT firms are doing new business there.

To date, we have travelled with a total of 189 business people from 126 companies. They have established IT services business in Dubai, and one has partnered with an established British company (they met on my mission to London).

Clearly, Mr Hylton, we wouldn’t have so many repeats on our missions if these business people did not find value in travelling with us. Now that you know, this is one of the significant ways the Andrew Holness administration and this ministry are fostering very beneficial “private and public sector collaboration”.

Senator Aubyn Hill is the minister of industry, investment and commerce. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.