Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

Manufacturers and small businesses have joined hoteliers in a cry for help from the Jamaican Government even as analysts are predicting that commerce will be hamstrung by a global-market crisis.

Last week, in Montego Bay, however, Prime Minister Bruce Golding indicated he was amenable to the appeals, saying Cabinet was actively considering several initiatives.

Cries for help have come from tourism, manufacturing and agriculture - sectors that "are under great economic stress", said a release from the Office of the Prime Minister.

Jamaica's main trading partner, the United States, acknowledged last Monday that its recession began back in December 2007. The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development has also said that the rich bloc of nations was in a similar position.

"We have to focus on the investments that need to be made now, the plans that need to be put in place now, to ensure that when the world begins to ride out of the crisis — because it will, this is not a life sentence — we want to make sure we position Jamaica so we can be at the head of the line when the recovery begins," said Golding.

Intervention

The Jamaica Manufacturing Association (JMA) and the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ) acknowledged to Sunday Business that they have asked for Government's intervention.

Their appeal follows that of the Jamaica Hotels and Tourist Association, whose members are lobbying for relief from taxes, including waivers from general consumption tax.

Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA) president Omar Azan said his group was not looking for that type of support, but wanted the type of concessions that would make it easier for the sector to continue to grow.

"We haven't gone to a drastic request like the Jamaica Hotels and Tourist Association," he told Sunday Business.

"It would be a welcoming thing for the manufacturers, but I am not sure how affordable it would be for the country at this point in time," he pointed out.

Among the concessions asked for is a change in Government's procurement policy, which Azan said would not add major costs to the Government.

Under this proposed measure, the JMA head, who runs his own furniture-manufacturing company, Boss Furniture, said the sector would be guaranteed 10 per cent of Government's procurement contracts, which would allow local manufactures to be able to get some business.

The proposal is four years old, he tells Sunday Business.

"The schoolbook print is a major thing, and if we could get just the primary schoolbooks alone, where the price would just be five or seven per cent more than they're being imported for, it would mean 200 more jobs being created, (and) foreign exchange saved by the county," Azan said.

Increased volume

"Rather than bringing finished books for our Jamaican schoolchildren, we would be able to print our own schoolbooks, employ more Jamaicans in the printing industry, be able to retool our printing industry with increased volume. It will allow our manufacturers to be able to reduce our prices, too, because then they will be able to buy raw material in larger volumes and help to reduce cost."

He said these contracts are now being offered to regional partners who are benefiting at the expense of the local industries.

Azan also said the JMA would be pressing for the removal of the two per cent customs user fees on raw materials being imported for the sector.

These measures, he added, were presented a month ago to Prime Minister Golding and a meeting has been scheduled for December 5, when the Government will give its response to the demands.

"The productive sector is in dire need of help and we have been neglected for quite some time. Nothing has been done; everything has been given to tourism. No country can run on one sector alone," said Azan.

"We are not in any way hitting on Government to help tourism, but what we need to ask them is to level the playing field on all sectors. If you are going to be helping one, you need to be helping all."

Edward Chin-Mook, president of the SBAJ, said, too, that their issues had not changed and would merely be reiterated.

Concerns include a proposal to reduce the tax rate to 10 per cent, to replace the different payroll taxes.

"So, you would have a tax rate of 10 per cent across the board, so you wouldn't really have the five statutories that you now have; you would combine all of them into one," he said.

"We are also lobbying that you don't file every month, but every three months."

The SBAJ has also put on the table a tax-incentive programme that the Government could offer to the sector whenever it created a new job.

"We have had some discussions with Minister Shaw and some with Minister Samuda. We have not actually put it in one document and made a submission, and that is what I am going to be doing in the next couple of days," he said a week ago.

Challenging times

The exporters, whose association had a change of administration last month, have not approached Government, but plan to.

"It will have to be on the agenda at some point, but it is just that we have not convened as yet to address just that," said Michael Lumbsden, new president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association.

Golding's office says he will unveil the initiatives under consideration "shortly" in acknowledgement that it was "important to sustain these critical sectors through these challenging times".

The manufacturing sector represents just under 13 per cent of gross domestic product and up to last year, employed more than 69,000 people, or 6.1 per cent of the employed labour force.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com