MJS Industrial and Technology Park Opening
Keynote Address
by
Dr the Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
MJS Industrial and Technology Park Opening, Fairymead Farm,
Angels, St Catherine
On
June 24, 2025
—————————————————————————————————————–
Thank you very much, Khalila, for your usual masterful master of the ceremony. Allow me to stand on the protocols established. You are all important, nice and decent people.
I have a prepared text, but as I sat reflecting on my own journey along the train line from St John’s Road going to visit friends in Linstead, taking the train after school, and I would pass by here. I’ve always wondered why this factory was abandoned and I also reflected on the Goodyear factory in St Thomas, which suffered a similar faith. The Rice Mill in Spanish Town as well and you could go right through the island and see Jamaica’s industrial ambitions laying idle in waste.
In about 1949 or 1947, the government of Jamaica passed legislation to support the development of pioneer industries and that relied heavily on incentives. The policy direction of government then was largely protectionist as well and several pieces of legislation would’ve been passed to protect, for example, the textile market. As a result of that, this facility was developed, the Ariguanabo Textile Factory in collaboration with- I believe it’s a Cuban textile entrepreneur in partnership with the government of Jamaica. It was a huge development, and it became the engine of the economy of Spanish Town along with the steel mill and I’ve mentioned the rice mill and the salt factory and all kinds of other industrial endeavours in and our own Spanish Town and then it just collapsed, and there are many reasons why it would’ve become dormant.
Firstly, the changing global context, competitiveness but of course, local economic policies. Interest in the factory was eventually acquired by a Colombian company, and they operated it for several years, and then they decided that they would divest themselves of the interest and the government of Jamaica had to take it over fully to prevent it from going under. The government of Jamaica made quite a bit of investment in it, trying to keep the jobs, but it was literally an impossible task.
By then, the Asian economies were producing textile far more efficiently than we could, but also by then the political challenges in Jamaica which spawned economic challenges as well in the 70’s would’ve made these kinds of endeavours unprofitable and so there was an inevitable fate for many of these factories. They closed, people were put out of work, their dreams and aspirations of Jamaica being an industrial manufacturing fast developing economy, those were destroyed.
We struggled through in the 90’s and in the early 2000’s trying to find our economic footing and indeed a part of the lands of the Ariguanabo factory was sold off into housing: Angels Estates and so forth. Fifteen acres remained in the government’s portfolio pretty much like the St Thomas Goodyear factory, where suffered similar fate, the factory just could not compete. The economic and social conditions just were not conducive to manufacturing or really any form of economic activity, even as our economy was going through a transition becoming a mainly service-based economy.
Fast forward from me on that train to me driving past the Goodyear factory, now deciding to take on leadership of the country and having to figure out what are we going to do to restore an economy, and we decided that even though they are in a dormant state, they are still significant assets as Michael Subratie would’ve discovered, coming and looking at the steel frame buildings, examining the concrete to see that it was still intact and that all that was needed was the spark of an entrepreneur to see what is possible. And in the same way, I looked at the Goodyear factory and looked at St Thomas and saw what was possible.
We took a decision as a government that our economy cannot develop on one plank. We’ve done well in the services, tourism and BPOs, but logistics is another plank and whenever I speak about logistics, I must acknowledge Tony because he was a strong advocate for logistics, but we must get back into manufacturing. Jamaica must resuscitate its manufacturing base, and so we decided that we’re going to look at all the assets that the government has and either we seek to develop it, or we are going to make it available to entrepreneurs to develop.
And so when we were approached to have this land divested, we were very supportive of it. Granted, there were some who thought it would not have been possible given, as was said, the incredible negative perceptions that rained on Spanish Town, but the entrepreneurial vision was successful and I want to, at this point, commend Michael Subratie and PB Scott and the Musson Group for having the vision but more so, for having the courage to put the resources behind this US$50 million development, which is significant in the same way that the government had the vision and the courage to develop the Morant Bay Urban Centre.
Now, I want to just put all of this development in context. None of these things could happen without the entrepreneurs seeing that there was a stable economic environment. That is an absolute important parameter for any of these dreams and wishes to materialize. So, even before we decided to develop the Morant Bay Urban Centre as a government, we had to make sure that our debt situation was stable. And just to remind you, just in case it has escaped this wonderful audience, in 2016, we were at about 130% debt-to-GDP. Today we are at 68% and heading down.
That means that government is less likely to become a burden on its citizens and business. So in other words, a businessman looking on at a factory that has been abandoned for decades says I see the vision for this and then they will draw the architectural and engineering plans, but when they go to do the business plan and they have to look at cash flows, then a part of aligning that cash flow would be taxes.
And then they have to test it to see what if the government increased taxes in year two, arbitrarily, what would be my obligation and how would that impact on my bottom line? And then the decision may be, from an architectural and structural point of view this would be good. The markets are there, Sagility and Transparent, they would come, but would it be profitable? Would it end up back to square one where I can’t pay the workers, I can’t meet my debt, and then I would have to shut down the business, so you know what, this project doesn’t work.
The project works when the businessman looking on and say I’ve had seven years of this government so far, and guess what, no new taxes. You have had 10 budgets, so all the businesspeople who are looking at projects, let’s get them off the planning sheets and into reality. Of course, incentives are critical and incentives in a sense- I’m going to be very careful how I say it, but you will understand when I say what I say.
Incentives, compensate for losses for projects that wouldn’t make it in the first place so there is a view about how we should develop, which is we should give incentives, and we have struggled with that because incentives can lead to fiscal challenges. You could end up in a race to the bottom, but there are ways to support development. There are ways to encourage industries without necessarily having to give fiscal incentives.
Now, let me just quickly say that between administrations, the previous administration and our administration before that, there was the understanding and agreement as to how we come out of that and remain out of that and that is we need an omnibus legislation to cover incentives. So, we give a set of incentives, they’re transparent, you know how to access them, there’s no more. And that is rolled up both in the omnibus legislation and in the special economic zone legislation under the Special Economic Zone Authority so there are incentives, but there are always people who will be saying, give more incentives and I’ll fix up this factory, give more incentives, and I’ll do that.
Well, what are the other incentives that businesspeople would want? First of all, businesspeople would want a well-trained labour force. If government absorbs the cost of training the labour force, that is a significant incentive for business, so training has an externality. In other words, the government spending on training gives a private benefit to the person trained, but it also gives an external benefit to the rest of the society, including the business.
If you notice the representative from Transparent pointed out the labour force. The training of labour and your labour force is one of the biggest assets that any economy can present to investors, and therefore, the HEART Trust/ NSTA is a critical partner in driving training. This project would not necessarily be as attractive without the government’s deliberate and instrumental investment in training of the labour force.
There are other incentives and there are other ways in which government supports these kinds of developments, and one of them, which is going to become increasingly tangible to the average citizen is peace and security. Now, if you were to consider, why is it that no one else before now actually saw the vision for this old textile mill? It was because the perception was created that this area was not safe and the cost that it would take from the private individual to make this place safe would make the business unprofitable.
Do you see the weight that crime and violence places on our economic development? Do you see how it suppresses us? And do you see why we cannot be ambivalent in once and for all dealing with the gangs that are in the business of violence?
They are not our friends. They mean us no good. We cannot be ambivalent about it and they have held down Spanish stone for decades. I say to you today, if we achieve peace in Spanish Town, there would be a rushing sound of investors into this place. Why? Because you have a population that is largely well-trained. You already have basic infrastructure in place, and you have some of the most creative people in and around this area.
The government’s strategy, which runs parallel to our economic strategy is our strategy for peace. The less than a thousand criminals who make Jamaica be perceived as unsafe can be easily addressed, and they have been largely addressed. And we will not relent in ensuring that those less than a thousand people prevent the 3 million people who either are Jamaicans or people working and living here, achieve their dreams and aspirations for self-fulfilment. I cannot be clearer about our strategy. Jamaica will attain peace as we have had peace in our country up to the 1960s when our murder rate was the equivalent of that, of the United States, less than three per hundred thousand.
We will get back to that and we will get back to that within this decade. Unless there are those who cringe at the idea of being deliberate and instrumental and direct and targeted at criminals. The same criminals who are involved in scamming and extortion and being the footmen of gangs, the same criminals can be rehabilitated, and they can come to work right here. They can come to work in the call centres. They can become the data scientists. They can become the people who are manning all the machinery and the equipment in the bakery. Why not?
The truth is we need their label. We need them and therefore our policy is clear. And I’m now speaking to our young men and women of Spanish Town. Heart Trust training is free, go and get a skill. Make that decision, put down the gun, put down the violence, and say, I am going to HEART. We’ve made it so easy. If you’re just leaving school, we have a program called the Care Programme. If you didn’t get enough CXCs, we will support you to go and get training. We’ll give you stipend and bus fair and lunch money to get you into these programmes.
Our path is clear. Choose the right path. There will be a job for you. You’re not going to get the big pay right away, but work with the programme, every year it gets better. Or go the wrong path and deal with a judge or greet your maker. It’s clear what we have to do.
The strategy of developing economic zones is not new, practiced all over the world, but they are necessary, particularly in environments where we need to bring all the necessary lines of effort to support business. An environment like this, you would see that you have transportation coming in to make it more efficient for your staff. You would probably have shared services such as a common cafeteria and other services, maybe a little ATM and banking services; all the logistics necessary to make your operations easier and more efficient and more productive. But I also know that you are considering energy because that is the next big obstacle for growth, the cost of energy.
So, we have dealt with the macroeconomic and the fiscal issues, stable economy. That’s one step on the investment ladder so you don’t have to worry about taxes and so forth. We have dealt with the fiscal incentives, another step on the fiscal ladder. The government policy is clear that we are willing to partner with business, we are supportive of business, we will engage in public private partnerships, and we will make government owned assets available to the private sector to develop, another step on the rung of investment.
Security, big issue. The Government is dealing with that. There is no question that this administration has dealt with it in a decisive way, and the results will continue to be in our favour. Jamaica will be a peaceful country, another step on the investment ladder.
Jamaica continues to be one of the highest energy costs countries in the region. On the demand side, there are some things that we can do. For example, we have reduced the GCT on electricity, so all of you here, if you have the JPS app and your bill cycle is now due, you can go on it and you will see it’s no longer 15% GCT.
It’s now 7%, a major reduction, and we’re spending over a billion dollars on trying to encourage prepaid metering so that we reduce the line losses, what they call the non-technical losses rather, and we are also supporting the wiring of houses. Again, another initiative to reduce the cost of electricity, which is a huge part of the cost of living to households, but we have to reduce the cost of electricity to business if our economy is to grow and we are to realize our dreams of becoming an industrial and manufacturing hub in the region.
It is clear to us; renewables are an option. Solar prices, particularly for panels and batteries are coming down so there has to be greater investment, but it has to be carefully managed because what you don’t want to happen is for there to be a rapid migration from the national grid into individually supplied energy solutions using renewables. Otherwise, that will just drive up the unit cost for everyone else who remains on the grid. There has to be a national strategy as to how we reduce energy cost for everyone. That is the next step to be able to get to a really larger flow of investments in Jamaica. And in a few days, I don’t want to say everything here, but in a few days, you will see our policy and strategy unfold as to how we intend to make a really profound change in the cost of energy for the average Jamaicans.
Now, all of this is moving towards, as we had announced, our pivot to growth, the next chapter. There is one more element and that is efficiency. I believe I’ve spoken a lot on efficiency and what we plan to do. We are working towards making it more efficient. This project took some time, not just the regulatory time, which is Norman’s fault. I know I would get your attention Norman, but just the process of just divesting the land, it did go through an involved process, so we have started to deal with that.
I hope that I have kind of laid out to you the steps that the government has been taking, which would’ve led us to investments like these but many more investments. You would’ve driven along the North Coast and you would’ve seen massive tourism development, just huge tourism developments in housing and construction and you name it.
Just yesterday, the Factories Corporation completed Phase 1 of their redevelopment of another Special Economic Zone or a free zone at the time it was called. The GARMEX free zone, which was another textile garment factory back in the days in the 80s and they have transformed that into a modern economic hub where they’re having everything from warehousing to a media company to a technology-based company; all kinds of companies are doing business there. We just opened that yesterday and I’m here today again doing this.
It tells you that there’s an energy for investment, but in as much as we see this energy, we have not yet realized 50% of the potential of foreign direct investment and local investment for Jamaica. As I have outlined the steps we need to take, the steps we have taken and the steps that we are about to take, I’m confident that Jamaica will become a fast-growing economy in this new era. I’m confident that Jamaicans will be able to achieve all their dreams and aspirations. They will be able to fulfil themselves right here.
I looked on with great despair that a lot of our young people still have their eyes cast overseas. I’m not sure they’re really reading carefully what is happening overseas and that the days of general migration, that those days are fast coming to an end. And the solution to that is not to become depressed and self-defeated. The solution to that is to look inward for the opportunities because there are opportunities. The opportunities need to be met by creative, entrepreneurial people, and we as a government need to encourage a platform on which creative and entrepreneurial persons can do well.
The truth is, we need maybe another 200 Michael Subratie’s and PB Scott and Nicholas. And if we have those and they’re going out there finding the opportunities in Jamaica, this one initiative would have a hired 2,500 or more. They’re going to be up to about 5,000 when they’re at their full so you can just imagine that as more entrepreneurs take on more opportunities, how the entire country benefits, which is you benefit through employment and income, better service, less crime, better facilities, and Jamaica grows.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you so much for being the attentive audience, and I hope that I have communicated to you the role of the government in development. This is a purely private sector development. Government has nothing to do with it in terms of any debt or any partnership, except making it possible by providing the land, making it possible, by providing the right economic environment, making it possible, by providing the training in the society, making it possible by ensuring that there is security, and we’re going to now make sure that energy and efficiency are well-rooted as a part of the Jamaican landscape.
Choose Jamaica.