JMEA urges strengthening of stimulus package

Government should use the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen and deepen the supply chain for manufacturing, export and agricultural production, according to the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (JMEA).

In a press release Wednesday, it argued that urgent decisive action could help to improve Jamaica’s food and nutrition security, diversify our manufacturing base, expand our export and reduce import dependency. The JMEA made the call against the recognition of the need for the Government to use its resources to protect the most vulnerable citizens at this time.

“We wholeheartedly commend the Government for putting in place a myriad of social and business interventions to support our students, the elderly, the poor and our micro and small businesses.

“Specifically, for employees, we support the introduction of the BEST CASH and the SET CASH aimed at promoting continued employment and providing support for employees from any business that will be laid off due to the COVID-19 crisis. Additionally, the introduction of the two grant programmes valued up to $2 billion will assist micro businesses and the tourism sector with injection of funds to remain viable and, most important, recover quickly. We hope consideration will be given to extend this to manufacturers who have a high percentage of their businesses in the tourism sector,” it urged.

The JMEA commended the Government’s efforts to ease the financial burden on businesses, singling out implementation of the one-off or single-use tax compliance certificates to businesses which may fall into non-compliance.

“The Government has put in good verification measures to access the benefits, and these measures could potentially move more companies from the informal to formal economy. We also applaud the finance minister for recognising the fallout for the agriculture sector that supply tourism by setting aside $200m to purchase these products.”

RESET SECTORS

With all sectors facing serious challenges during this uncertain period, we must not fail to put measures in place to create an enabling environment to capitalise on opportunities that present themselves, it further argues.

“The service sector has been the area of focus and has got the bulk of the support, but this crisis demonstrates that our economy is vulnerable and needs quality diversification. We must act now; this is too good an opportunity to miss to reset the productive sectors. Let us work to bring in raw materials and do more value-added processing to replace imports. As a nation, we have become complacent and prepared to be importers of everything. The productive sector: manufacturers, farmers and exporters, face unwieldy bureaucracy and cost, but we now have an opportunity to remove the barriers and let Jamaica start producing again.

“Again, we applaud the Government for announcing packages to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Over the next few days, we hope to be able to see measures being announced to strengthen the productive sector. We should not only survive COVID-19 but we should emerge with a stronger base to drive a resilient and sustainable growth.”