The Real Reason Jamaica Is Not Rebuilding After the Hurricane (It's Doing Something Bigger)

reconstruction spending. It is not just repair. It is the single largest economic intervention that Jamaica will make in a generation. I want I want to say that again.

The reconstruction spending that will come in Nara. It It won't be just any ordinary capital expenditure. It will be the single largest economic intervention that um will be made in a generation. Possibly in the 200 and odd years of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce.

It will be the largest intervention. The possibility is that we could increase our GDP by more than 20% as a result. Every dollar spent on rebuilding this country is an opportunity to do more than restore what existed before. We're not rebuilding the old Jamaica.

We're building the foundation of a new Jamaica. More competitive, more resilient, less exposed to the next shock. That means roads built not just to carry today's traffic, but to open new corridors for commerce, logistics, and housing. Water systems designed uh not just for current demand, but to meet agricultural expansion and expansion in tourism.

Energy infrastructure that reduces our dependence on imported fuels and locks in lower costs for households and businesses for decades to come. This is a big challenge. The challenge of energy. Uh JPS is here.

Um we are going through negotiations now. The intention is to lock in with a license certain changes that will see tangible reductions in electricity and energy costs for households and businesses. Uh Jamaica's energy costs are prohibitive. And we have to tackle it.

And we have we must make substantial improvements in it. But we cannot place all our hopes for reduction on a renegotiated license. Uh we must now explore in meaningful ways the large-scale deployment of alternative energy sources. And we must prepare ourselves to be able to deploy nuclear technology.

Uh because nuclear technology is uh becoming um the uh the de facto clean energy resource. So, we have to put ourselves in that position. And it's not going to be long. It's going to be a decade or so.

But to be to be able to deploy that, you have to prepare from now. So, we are looking at the energy sector in real ways to make real changes. But we also need stronger firms. We need stronger contracting firms.

Firms that are investing in themselves. Firms that are hiring the engineers and the architects and the project managers to be able to deliver the large projects that will come under Nara. But since I have this room, Nara is not only about government expenditure. There may be in this room companies that have projects that they want to have executed.

Nara is that platform. Uh we have stated that if you have a project 15 million US or above and it fits within the reconstruction and resilience, it is in alignment with any of the other projects that the government is doing, come to us. Utilize the Nara platform for approvals and processing and potential also for financing. And let us crowd in the private investment with the public investment.

In other words, the $6 billion that the government is hoping to deploy could easily be multiplied by several factors over if the private sector is fully mobilized for this effort. So I'm using this opportunity to plant the seed in your minds to start to think about all those projects that you have developed but you have put in file 13. Now may be the time to pull them, dust them off, revisit them, and see whether or not they can be crowded into the Nara investment trainline. So, that brings me to my closing of the presentation.

You've been such a lovely audience as I rambled on. Productivity. So, we we have dealt with violence, fiscal discipline, resilience building, and now we're building resurgence. But, the elephant is in the room which we don't speak of is that of Jamaica's productivity.

We We are the third lowest in terms of regional productivity. Many issues wrapped up in that, but I I would just like to say that productivity is the heart of growth. It is how we turn effort into value. It is how our wages rise without pushing prices out of control.

I want to repeat that. Um because as we are in this era in this period of wage negotiations, uh there's the view that you can increase wages inordinately and it is of no impact on prices. If wages don't match productivity and you increase wages, it's inflationary. It means you're going to come back again next year, ask for uh more wage increases because prices have increased, and you come back again the following year, and you're caught in this vicious cycle which we have been caught in for the last 40 years.

So, I just thought I would say it here. Um uh maybe we'll have more people saying it so that the the the outlook and view of the society can change and people can start to focus on really what do they produce. What do we produce as a people to claim increased wages. It's It's a discussion we need to have.

There's no value in money if it is not backed by production. And if you give people more money and there is no production to back it then you're just paying more for the same production. It is an idea that needs to seep into the minds of the average Jamaican. So, it is how businesses grow without passing on higher costs to consumers.

Again, another area that needs some discussion. It is how government collects more revenues without raising taxes. It is how Jamaica will compete with its peers. Productivity.

Improving productivity must become a national habit. For government, that means faster approvals, better project management, cleaner procurement, stronger digital services, and infrastructure that reduces the cost of doing business. And that's what the government is committed to doing. For businesses, it means investing in equipment, technology, training, management systems, export readiness, energy efficiency, and quality control.

And I know every business here represented is doing just that, trying to improve your productivity in order to compete. And for our workers, it means skills, improving skills. And since I have the business community here, every day a business person says to me, "Listen, Prime Minister, I cannot find people to work." But when I go out into the field, I see a lot of people not working. It is a challenge for businesses, and and it is indeed at this point a constraint on growth.

The question is, how do we attract the people who have decided to withhold their labor? How do we attract them into the labor market? It is a national conversation that must be had. But as our country grows and our economy grows, and we approach full employment, which we are almost at full employment, uh we are going to have to have a new labor policy, and a new policy on work, uh because the current situation is indeed constraining on your output and your efficiency.

But it also means that the Chamber of Commerce needs to join the conversation, needs to become stronger advocates. You can't You can't just leave it up to myself and Tony. Because I am going to say one thing, and anything I say Tony going to say the opposite. So, we we need to hear the voice of the business community to not just advocate for your position, but to have a conversation with your employees and your customers.

To speak generally so that the entire Jamaica can understand where we are today is it is totally different from the 70s. Where we are today, Jamaica could become Dubai or Singapore. Where if our economy grows, we might have to bring people in to keep the economy turning over. Yes, and can you imagine that Jamaica has reached that stage?

It is okay, Manas is growing, Antigua is growing. All of these other countries that have taken over labor to build their industries. We mustn't see ourselves as closed, insulated, xenophobic, isolated. We have to see ourselves as a country where people want to come and live.

And we must embrace them. Get the crime down, get the efficiency up, clean up the streets, start the reinvestment, you won't have a hand to sell Jamaica.