Jamaica moving in the right direction - JAMPRO president
Published:Monday | May 13, 2019 | 12:15 AM
President of Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), Diane Edwards, says the country is moving in the right direction and is on a trajectory to achieving its Vision 2030 target of “being a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business”.
Edwards was speaking at the Jamaica Employers’ Federation’s (JEF) annual conference at the Moon Palace Jamaica Grande Resort in Ocho Rios on Friday.
She said the Government continues to make the necessary reforms in order to improve the country’s competitiveness and attractiveness as an investment destination and has set an ambitious target of achieving top-10 ranking in the World Bank Doing Business Report (DBR) within a few years.
The annual report ranks economies based on how easy it is to do business in their respective countries, taking into account trading regulations, property rights, contract enforcement, investment laws, the availability of credit, and a number of other factors.
In the 2019 DBR, Jamaica is ranked 75th out of 190 countries, and while this is a five-point slide from 2018, it shows that progress has been made since 2013, when the island was ranked 91st out of 185 countries.
Top-performing country
Currently, Jamaica is the top-performing country within the Caribbean and is in the top six within the Latin America and Caribbean region.
“When you look at starting a business, Jamaica is number six in the world … yes, this little island,” Edwards said.
“We are now starting a business in three days. Five years ago, we were starting a business in 31 days. That is a huge achievement for a small country. That is the type of thing that puts us on the investment map. This is something we should be proud of,” she noted.
Edwards further pointed to the improvement in the country’s distance to frontier (DTF) score – from 64.89 in 2013 to 67.47 in 2019.
The DTF score measures an economy’s own progress in reforming business regulations and practices over time, and the scoring ranges from zero to 100 points.