EDITORIAL - Resisting the neo-Luddites

This week's symposium on Jamaica's bid to transform itself into a major logistics hub for the Western Hemisphere is timely, given the finding, reported by this newspaper, of the broad ignorance of the concept.

Hopefully, the event will not only expose people to potential business opportunities, but provide Jamaicans with ammunition to turn back the sceptics and naysayers. For ignorance is exploited by the neo-Luddites, some of whom create illusions of commitment to modernity with their selective embrace of elements of progress, while doing their utmost to stymie new, and potentially fast, drivers of economic advancement.

First, it is no great mystery that after half a century of political Independence, Jamaica has failed to enjoy sustained economic growth and national output that, on a per-capita basis, is around half of that of most members of the region, including partners who make up the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

In Jamaica, we embraced bad economic policies, poorly managed our fiscal accounts, ran up a huge national debt, and failed to create the surpluses required to fund the social and physical infrastructure that is necessary for sustained economic growth. Indeed, the economic austerity programme being implemented by our Government, under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, is a direct symptom of these failures.

SINGAPORE GOT IT RIGHT

One country that got it right from early is Singapore, whose GDP is around US$305 billion, giving it a per-capita income of US$65,000, or nearly 10 times Jamaica's.

Singapore's economic success is built, in part, on its success in leveraging its geographic location in South East Asia into being the world's major logistics centre. More than 7,000 logistics-related firms operate in Singapore, employing around nine per cent of its workforce and accounting for nearly 10 per cent of GDP.

Products and goods manufactured, assembled and trans-shipped through Singapore's hubs from distant suppliers to regional and global markets, allow firms to better manage their supply chains and cut costs.

The Netherlands, with its port of Rotterdam, is another global example of an economy in which logistics is a significant contributor: 10 per cent of GDP.

In neither case have all the nation's eggs been placed in a single basket. Nor has, in either circumstance, productivity been gained by importing cheap labour from China or Korea, as some will claim can be Jamaica's only route to success to a manufacturing element to a logistics operation. Further, it is to draw red herring and to raise a canard to presume that lowering energy costs to competitive rates can only be achieved with our power plants just burning the worst polluting fuels.

Moreover, this newspaper, and Jamaicans generally, we believe, take umbrage to any implication that our only capability in the global logistics business, in the absence of external labour and management, is at the warehousing and distribution end. We insist on engaging in, once there is demand, the whole spectrum of the enterprise, including at the higher-value ends.

Our consignment to low-end operations, and even then only grudgingly, is like allowing the looms if they are driven by human muscle rather than steam.

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