Above: GC Foster College

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaica and China this week signed an economic agreement aimed at rehabilitating the country’s Sligoville community road and water supply systems.

The agreement is valued at just over $505,000 USD, or $J45 million.

Sports Minister Natalie Neita-Headley, who signed the agreement on behalf of Jamaica’s government, said the project was the beginning of a process for development of what was the first free village in Jamaica.

“Freedom started at Sligoville, and we have to ensure the proper development of that community,” she said.

The new water system will help with local usage and with supplying the multipurpose stadium in Sligoville.

“We have major plans [at the stadium] to become part of a higher performance centre twinned with the GC Foster College as the northern campus of the college,” she said.

GC Foster is also the site of Jamaica’s first international, standardized baseball field, which broke ground earlier this year.

The water project will begin in one month, and is slated for completion in six months.

The Chian Shanx Construction Engineering Corporation, SXCEC, is working on the project.

“We believe that the Sligoville project will bring real benefits to the Jamaican people, and look forward to its early commencement and smooth and succsessful implementation,” she said.