PAJ/SAJ collaboration essential to shipping industry growth - Shirley

Professor Gordon Shirley, president and chief executive officer (CEO)-designate of the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), said collaboration between the Shipping Association of Jamaica (SAJ) and the PAJ is critical to the development of the shipping industry.

"The industry is changing rapidly. We speak about the widening of the Panama Canal, but at the same time, many other changes are happening. Other ports in the region are expanding; the US West Coast Ports will not roll over and die. Everybody is gearing up to take advantage of the change. Ensuring that Jamaica's shipping industry develops will require guts and fortitude. It requires that we work together in a professional way to get things done in the ways that Mr Hylton has done in the past."

Shirley was being introduced to the managing committee of the SAJ at a meeting called for the purpose by Noel Hylton, outgoing chairman, president, and CEO of the PAJ, on Thursday, September 19.

SAJ president, Kim Clarke, on behalf of the managing committee, expressed the association's commitment to continued collaboration with the PAJ for the expansion of shipping and the related logistics industry.

Unrivalled public servant

Shirley described Noel Hylton as an unrivalled public servant. "In post-Independence Jamaica, there is no other public servant who can be compared with Noel Hylton. I expect him to be my chief consultant on many issues. He understands things that many of us will have to learn in time, and I want to say a special word of thanks for the guidance he has given to the industry over these many years," Shirley continued.

He stated that no other industry can compete with shipping in relation to its contribution to national development. He added that modern Jamaica is built around trading, of which shipping is a central part.

In outlining the development of colla-boration between the two organisations, Hylton emphasised that the SAJ and PAJ had maintained a good working relationship characterised by mutual respect over the years. It is a relationship in which there have been disagreements, but such issues have been managed very amicably.

"There was never an issue that we were unable to resolve through dialogue," he noted, adding that labour relations is an area in which the two entities cooperated over the years.

"We meet, discuss and take common positions," Hylton said. "That is why we have such a tremendous record of industrial harmony on the port ... . We solve disputes by dialogue."

Shirley noted that the PAJ had several initiatives that would be part of his major focus in the immediate future. These include the plans to capitalise on the widening of the Panama Canal, the divestment of the Kingston Container Terminal, the Port Community System, investments in the industrial zones, and Jamaica's cruise ports.