JAMPRO relaunches fast track export centre
Published:Friday | November 11, 2011 | 12:00 AM
JAMPRO has relaunched its fast track facility for exporters to access documentation from multiple agencies at a single location.
It extends to services provided by the Trade Board, Jamaica Customs Department, Bureau of Standards, Companies Office of Jamaica, Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, the Ministry of Agriculture's plant quarantine and veterinary division, and the state bodies with which exporters interact.
The centre also offers advisory services and acts as a collection point for fees for various licences and certificates payable to different state agencies.
The facility offered under the National Export Strategy (NES) programme was relaunched at the NES general assembly on Tuesday.
JAMPRO president Sancia Bennett-Templer, said that when NES was first conceptualised in 2004, it was within the context of a global economy whose trade had grown nominally by 21 per cent over the previous year, and which was valued at US$8.9 trillion.
Reversal of fortunes
"In real terms, global trade had increased by nine per cent and was expected to grow by a further six per cent in 2005. Developing countries had started to make their mark in the global marketplace accounting for over 30 per cent of world trade - the highest level since the 1950s," she said.
But then the financial crisis sparked a global recession.
The global economy has weathered "the most severe global recession in over eight decades, experiencing a low of negative six per cent in late 2008 before recovering to pre-recession growth rates only in mid-2010," said Bennett-Templer. Scholars, she said, have estimated the resulting fall-out in global trade to be in excess of 30 per cent relative to the decline in GDP.
"For Jamaica, this trend is also true as while the country recorded a nominal decline of five per cent in the GDP between 2008 and 2010, there was a decline of 50.8 per cent in exports and a 39.4 per cent decline in imports recorded in 2009, with a marginally positive improvements in 2010," said the trade and investment promoter.
Bennett-Templar that the NES programme has grown into a broader initiative to ensure Jamaica's global competitiveness in trade by 2013.
"Today, the secretariat is in implementation mode; poised and ready to ensure the execution of the initiatives that have been identified as priorities under the strategy," she said.
Initiatives to be executed under the NES include the continued roll-out of JAMPRO's newest capacity-building initiative - the Export Max Enterprise Development Programme.
"In addition to the Export Max, in a few weeks we expect to be able to talk more about the Export Plus Programme as well, whose main objectives are similar to Export Max, but which is a more broad-based programme that will be implemented with the support of the IDB," Bennett-Templer said.