US$1B FOR CAYMANAS - Americans earmarking big bucks to invest, says Tapia

Outgoing United States Ambassador to Jamaica Donald Tapia says American investors are eyeing a US$1 billion investment at Caymanas in St Catherine.

In an exit interview yesterday, Tapia said that two American billionaires are involved in what he described as a “deep dive”. The men – one from Texas and the other from Arizona – are said to be looking at the area in Caymanas to determine the type of investment to pursue.

He told The Gleaner that about six weeks ago, the prospective investors held a meeting with Jamaican government officials to discuss their plans.

Tapia said that there are hundreds of acres of land that is open for industrial development at Caymanas.

“They are now looking at the property to be able to come and make a proposal to the Government.”

He said that the Jamaican Government has been very open to attracting new investment from his country.

The ambassador said that once the COVID-19 pandemic was over, he expected prospective US investors to reignite plans to seek out investment opportunities in Jamaica.

Late last year, Prime Minister Andrew Holness had also revealed that the Chinese government had expressed an interest in rolling out major investments in the Caymanas Special Economic Zone.

At the time of his announcement in Parliament in November 2019, Holness said that the Government would have to work out how it would treat with the proposed investment.

“Are we going to treat it on a sole source or do we treat it as a strategic investment, or do we put out open tender?” Holness questioned.

During his 2019 presentation, the prime minister sought to assure the country that the administration had not abandoned the Caymanas Special Economic Zone.

In October this year, local companies with plans to expand their physical plants said that they had become increasingly impatient with the time it was taking to establish the Caymanas Special Economic Zone.

Sanmerna Paper Product, which was looking to expand locally and abroad as part of its five-year strategic growth plan, had urged Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Audley Shaw, to expedite the process.