File
From left, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Kenneth Baugh, and High Commissioner to Canada, Evadne Coye.

Renewed thrust through Jamaica's missions overseas in targeting investment and trade opportunities to assist the country's development and a better quality of life for its citizens was the recurring theme of the recent meeting of Jamaica's senior diplomats in Kingston.

"We believe that it is vital to refocus our foreign policy initiatives to ensure increased levels of trade and investment. Jamaica must seek to benefit from trade and financial globalisation," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Dr Kenneth Baugh, told the diplomats in his opening address.

"The type of trade and investment that we seek is that which is beneficial to the Jamaican people in terms of creating productive employment, building infrastructure and improving capacity," he said.

Greater cooperation

A feature of this drive will be greater cooperation by the missions with Jamaica Trade and Invest (formerly JAMPRO). Trade commissioners who are being appointed will work out of Jamaican embassies.

In a post-meeting interview, Dr Baugh was pleased with the deliberations as he reflected on its rationale and outcome.

"It was a most important, friendly and productive exercise which provided the opportunity for our ambassadors, high commissioners and consuls general to hear first hand the thinking of the new government on Jamaica's foreign policy and priority areas.

"Especially important was the chance to dialogue with heads of missions as to their role in discharging their critical mandate of promoting and protecting Jamaica's national interest on the world stage," he stated.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who headed the list of speakers addressing and interacting with the diplomats during the week, had also underscored the importance of stepping up the quest for increased investments and trading opportunities.

During the meeting with the heads of missions Golding indicated that some shifts in the country's foreign policy may become necessary based on the current global environment. He noted that Jamaica's foreign policy had served the country well over time and as such did not require fundamental change.

Interacting with the diplomats on relevant policies and programmes being pursued by their ministries were: Audley Shaw, minister of finance and the public service; Karl Samuda, minister of industry, investment and commerce; and Clive Mullings, minister of mining and energy. Dr Wesley Hughes, director of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, also briefed the diplomats on Vision 2030, the broad developmental framework for Jamaica.

Dr Robert Gregory, president of Jamaica Trade and Invest, also made a presentation focusing on Jamaica's business readiness.

Nobel Prize winner Prof Anthony Chen of the University of the West Indies Physics Department and Clifford Mahlung of the Meteorological Service spoke to the need to cope with climate change.

But it was Minister Baugh who set the tone in opening the meeting when he declared: "The retreat of the heads of mission, ambassadors and consular heads is meant not only to inform but to recruit your proven skills in an aggressive assault on major developing countries, to promote new and emerging market opportunities for our products and investment opportunities for Jamaica."

"Where opportunities exist, we must respond expeditiously, creatively and aggressively," he stated.

Jamaica well placed

Dr Baugh noted that Jamaica was strategically well placed geographically in shipping lines and air routes, in history, in language and in the hybridisation of ethnicity. The minister said the country was among the most cosmopolitan of countries in the world, which meant the diminution of differences of race, origin and culture and the coming together of peoples of the world in a melting pot of culture at all levels, international, national and at community levels. Jamaica was at the forefront of this inescapable event of globalisation.

"We must maximise this comparative advantage as a prerequisite and antecedent to aggressively seeking investment and businesses."

Minister Baugh remarked that every Jamaican must be taken on board as a national shareholder and stakeholder in the process of reform and production, and called for partnerships between political parties, the public and private sector, the missions, Jamaica Trade and Invest and the private sector.

The minister also identified the Jamaican diaspora as a source of investment. He challenged ministries and missions to develop a network of information and communication to facilitate this process. It was also necessary to use the dynamic association between the ministry and Jamaica Trade and Invest to ensure that the diaspora is fully on board in efforts to penetrate markets abroad and to attract investment flows to Jamaica.

Minister Baugh told the diplomats that the new administration perceived no need to make significant adjustments to the basic tenets and principles that have defined and underpinned Jamaica's foreign policy. These principles would remain grounded in multilateralism and good neighbourliness inclusive of: