Jamaican biz executives back Haiti as worthy investment destination

Executives of two Jamaican firms that do business in Haiti gave their unqualified backing Tuesday to others to join them, saying that not only are there opportunities in Jamaica's close north-eastern neighbour but that potential business partners are trustworthy.

"Once you gain their trust, it is level of trust you don't experience even in Jamaican business," Christopher Levy, the chief executive officer of Jamaica Broilers Group, the listed poultry and agro-processing company, told a seminar on economic opportunities in Haiti.

The seminar, which branded Haiti as "CARICOM's new business frontier" was organised by the Jamaican partnership of the auditing and consulting firm Pricewater-houseCoopers and Jamaica Air Service , a young domestic airline that recently began flying to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

That theme was framed against the backdrop of the planned rebuilding of Haiti from the January 2010 earthquake that killed over 230,000 people and demolished most of the country's infrastructure.

The international community has pledged around US$10 billion in public-sector rebuilding aid over the next decade and it is estimated that the private sector would be required to invest another US$25 billion as part of a broader effort to lift the Haiti out of the long cycle of poverty and political instability.

'Putting our feet down'

"Think, if only 10 per cent of that money comes, it is over US$1 billion," said Levy, whose company began to scout Haiti for the establishment of a poultry processing facility before the earthquake and continued after the disaster.

"We are definitely putting our feet down," he said.

P.J. Patterson, the former Jamaican prime minister who is CARICOM's special representative to Haiti, has been encouraging private sector companies, including Haiti's, to grasp opportunities being opened by the reconstruction - a call in which he was joined Tuesday by Guy Lamonthe, the director general of the country's investment and promotions agency.

Patterson argued that Jamaica, which, like Haiti is a CARICOM member and its closest community neighbour, has a "compelling self interest" to help in Haiti's recovery "and to serve as an advocate" in the international community for the resources with which to accomplish this.

"There is no need for us to be apologetic ... that we in the Caribbean, including Haiti, get a share of the rebuilding contracts and to take opportunities for investment," said Patterson.

There have been suggestions that with Haiti's standing as the hemisphere's poorest country with a low rate of literacy, it would be a difficult place to find talent to staff businesses.

But according to Ken Mason, group business development director for the telecoms firm Digicel Group, that is a myth that has been busted.

"Don't believe that you can't find opportunities for the stand-point of human resources," said Mason, who noted that 95 per cent of Digicel's staff was Haitian.

Increased usership

Digicel, started in Jamaica a decade ago by Irishman Denis O'Brien, has operated in Haiti for the past decade where it invested more than US$370 million to build out its mobile phone infrastructure.

When Digicel went to Haiti that country of 9-10 million people had 70,000 telephone landlines and the two mobile service providers shared 400,000 customers. Now, Digicel alone has around two million users.

Part of Digicel's strategy in Haiti, Mason explained, was, as it has done elsewhere: to engage local partners and be sensitive to cultural norms.

"You go there with a deep respect for the country and the culture," said Mason, echoing a sentiment that reverberated in other addresses.

"The important thing to them is to partner with," said Adrian Tait, a Jamaican PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, who is emerging as the firm's Haiti expert.

In fact, a common refrain among his Haitian colleagues in their discussions of the post-earthquake inflow of foreigners seeking to do business said Tait is, "Don't run over us, walk with us."

Jamaica Broilers' Levy said that even while his firm is developing its "cultural knowledge" of Haiti, he had little doubt that it will be a good place to do business.

"I will encourage you to go and try it," he said.

business@gleanerjm.com