Bloomberg Hosts Jamaica Trade Forum

By: - October 6th, 2011

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaican political and business leaders recently took center stage at a trade and investment forum at Bloomberg’s international headquarters in New York City, in an event coordinated by Dr Geneive Brown Metzger, Jamaica’s Consul General to New York.

Minister of Finance Audley Shaw and Industry Minister Dr Christopher Tufton discussed Jamaica’s debt restructuring, the sale of loss-making assets and efforts to attract foreign direct investment.

“Jamaica is open for business,” Tufton said, despite the announcement that the Prime Minister would be stepping down. “It is a natural part of the democratic process and it is important for all concerned to recognizes that it is business as usual.”

In a discussion of public debt, Shaw said Greece should follow Jamaica’s lead and restructure its national debt.

“Start with the debt exchange,” he said. “We had to do it because we had no other alternative.”

Shaw said he predicted that the economy would expand more than 2.5 percent in the 2011/2012 fiscal year.

Jamaica

CARICOM Meets on Crime

Above: the meeting in Guyana (Photo: CARICOM) By the Caribbean Journal staff Participants from St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are meeting in Guyana this week as part of a four-day sub-regional meeting on gangs and gang violence in the Caribbean. CARICOM has organized a series of sub-regional consultations titled Youth […]

Jamaica

Mark Gilbert on Designing Jacmel and How Haiti Can Learn from New Orleans

Above: one of the firm’s designs for housing in Jacmel By Alexander Britell The team at Vienna-based architecture firm trans_city_architecture is doing its part in redesigning and reconstructing the city of Jacmel, Haiti. Together, Mark Gilbert, Christian Aulinger and Georg Kogler have developed a comprehensive plan to reconstruct the city, based on several novel ideas […]

Jamaica

In St Lucia's Canaries, a Home for Art

Above: Canaries (Photo: SLTB) By the Caribbean Journal staff St Lucian MP Dr Keith Mondesir has announced plans for tourism development in the island’s fishing village of Canaries, with the intent to attract the kinds of tourist dollars that typically filter through to larger cities like Soufriere. “We believe that tourism is one of the […]

Grenada Approves REDjet Application

By the Caribbean Journal staff Grenada has approved an application by low-cost air carrier REDjet to service its Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago routes, according to Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Peter David. David said increasing travel opportunities for the region is good for Grenada’s economy. The company announced three weekly return flights to both […]

A New Chapter for Montserrat

 Above: Montserrat (Photo: Montserrat Tourism) By the Caribbean Journal staff Montserrat has sworn in Ruben Meade as the British Overseas Territory’s first-ever Premier, following the adoption of a new constitution in the country. It marks a new milestone for Montserrat, said Dr Denzil Douglas, the prime minister of neighbor islands St Kitts and Nevis. Douglas […]

CARICOM Targets Youth Violence

By the Caribbean Journal staff Grenada has approved an application by low-cost air carrier REDjet to service its Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago routes, according to Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Peter David. David said increasing travel opportunities for the region is good for Grenada’s economy. The company announced three weekly return flights to both […]

Trinidad Emergency Arrests Top 3,200

 Above: Trinidad PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar (Photo: TGISL) By the Caribbean Journal staff A total of 3,290 people were arrested in Trinidad from the Aug. 23 to Sep. 28 during the country’s ongoing State of Emergency, according to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Force. A plurality of arrests have been either drug or gang related, for […]