Canadian trade commissioner pledges more ICT investment

MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Canadian Trade Commissioner to Jamaica, Rick McRae has pledged to bring more Canadian investment into Jamaica, particularly in the field of information and communication technology (ICT).

McRae who took up office in September last year, said that although Canadians were investing mainly in Jamaica's finance and engineering sectors, opportunities for ICT investments were not being tapped.

Addressing private sector interests at a Manchester Chamber of Commerce (MCC) Awards ceremony at the Golf View Hotel last week, he said he would be using his term in office to push for more ICT investments from Canadian companies.

"I don't understand why there isn't more ICT in Jamaica. I don't understand why there isn't a huge amount of software development here. When I came here from Toronto, it took me four hours (flight), yet it takes five hours to get to Vancouver. You're closer to the whole eastern seaboard of North America, than the whole western seaboard. So you're very, very close. And I don't think either Jamaican or Canadian investors have factored in that proximity," McRae said.

McRae also noted that between 2008 and 2009, bilateral trade between Jamaica and Canada fell nearly 50 per cent, to $287 million in 2009 from $521 million the previous year. In that period, he said Canada bought some $165-million worth of products from Jamaica, against Jamaica's purchase of $123 million in products from his country.

McRae said despite the trade fallout, Canada remained the bedrock of Jamaica's financial sector, with companies like banking giants Scotia Bank and FirstCaribbean, RBTT (owned by the Royal Bank of Canada) and National Commercial Bank (owned by AIC, a major shareholder in the Canadian mutual fund.

The trade commissioner promised to push for more Jamaican students to study at Canadian universities, noting that just last year, his government launched a scholarship programme — Scholarship of the Americas — which specifically targeted Caribbean and, in particular, Jamaican students seeking to study in Canada.

BY RHOMA TOMLINSON

Monday, February 07, 2011