Above: St George’s, Grenada (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Grenada’s Industrial Development Corporation has been ranked first among 77 investment promotion institutions in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific, according to the Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking 2012 report, a joint effort by the World Bank Group.

The country’s GDIC was ranked ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, which finished second and third, respectively; the country’s overall rank was 26th worldwide.

The report said that, despite having a team of only five people, the GIDC focused on “speed and teamwork.”

“Knowing it must distinguish itself from other small and relatively remote Caribbean countries competing for FDI, GDIC set about making speed its competitive advantage,” the report said.

It pointed to Grenada’s high-speed approach, which focuses on quick responses to inquiries.In 2009, for example, a St Lucian manufacturer was looking to get a facility up and running by the end of the year.

“In eighth months, GDIC took the company from initial inquiry to operations, getting factory space built, licenses issues and workers hired,” the report said.

The investment brought $5 million in capital investment to the economy, or about 0.5 percent of Grenada’s GDP that year.