Push manufacturing for job creation - Butch

Prominent businessman Gary 'Butch' Hendrickson is calling for private-sector leaders to recognise the value of manufacturing to national growth and take risky, bold, innovative steps in creating jobs.

Hendrickson, owner and managing director of Continental Baking Company (National Bakery), believes manufacturing has become a foreign concept in Jamaica.

Addressing a Rotary Club of Kingston luncheon, held yesterday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, he said Jamaicans no longer ask, 'How can I make this?', but instead query, 'Who can I buy from?'

Hendrickson said this practice has led the nation to give away the added value of manufacturing to companies abroad which, in turn, gives away job security for Jamaicans.

He challenged business leaders to develop a culture of manufacturing what Jamaicans consume whenever possible and to realise that the growth of the nation requires a collective effort, not just that of the Government.

Acknowledging that high interest rates, unpredictable and unstable foreign exchange and oppressive bureaucracy have discouraged investment and growth, Hendrickson said: "We cannot continue to wait for the bureaucrats to move. If we have to, then we must move them out of the way."

He added: "We cannot continue to lose generation after generation of Jamaicans because of the inability to create prosperity and wealth for our people."

Creating jobs

Using his own Half-Way Tree Road plant as an example, Hendrickson said if it operated only as a distribution company, he would only be able to employ 300 people. However, by manufacturing as well, the company has been able to create 700 jobs with more in the works.

Encouraging the business community to think outside the box, Hendrickson said they needed to cooperate and that non-competing companies should help each other market.

"We need to show each other off, not show each other up," he said. "This is not the time for 'red eye'. If we spend half as much time working with each other as we do fighting, we would make Singapore look like a developing nation."

Hendrickson said the business leaders of the 1960s were the 'can-do' generation while today's leaders have to be the 'must do' generation.

He told the gathering: "We have missed the boat. It's time to start swimming like hell."

anastasia.cunningham@gleanerjm.com