Clinker deal positive development

The government's payment this week of the equivalent of nearly US$1.7 million to Caribbean Cement Company for clinker it exported to Venezuela is an all-round positive development which we hope can be replicated by other firms.

First, the arrangement opens an export market for a Jamaican firm, with all its implications for production and job maintenance and creation, while at the same time helping Government to meet a foreign-debt obligation, without having to scramble for the foreign exchange with which to do so. That is good for the Government's build-up of foreign reserves and the meeting of targets under its agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

More fundamentally, the payment further underlines the value of the PetroCaribe arrangement, under which Venezuela supplies oil to Jamaica and other Caribbean and Latin American countries on a preferential basis; that is, they pay cash for a portion of the consignment while the remainder is transformed into long-term, low-interest debt.

A significant part of PetroCaribe that, until now, remains unexplored by Jamaica is that which allows oil recipients to recover some of their outstanding debt with exports. This means we have to have the products that Venezuelan state agencies want to buy.

Our sense, however, is that Jamaican firms have not worked hard enough at determining what we have that the Venezuelan market needs and which we may be capable of providing at the right price.

The Carib Cement deal will hopefully show the way to others.

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