Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Harmony Cove Development
Keynote Address
By
Dr the Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
at the
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Harmony Cove Development
Duncans, Trelawny
On
July 22, 2025
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Thank you everyone. And thank you for the wonderful birthday greetings. Yes, one more year pon them.
There are so many distinguished persons here that it is sufficient to say good afternoon nice and decent people. That’s sufficient coverage for everyone without getting me into trouble for not acknowledging anyone specifically.
Horace told me a tale, that is my deputy Prime Minister, that he was so stressed as a member of parliament that he was seeking a place for some relaxation and he went to visit a friend who had a property across the road, and that friend pointed him to a very secluded beach that he could go and clear his mind. And whilst there he looked at the place and said, wow, what a paradise; untouched, unspoiled, this would be a great place for a development.
And as he is a visionary himself, he foresaw what could be, and he got in touch with Kingsley Thomas, another visionary. And at that time, I believe Kingsley was either the chairman of NHT or had something to do with NHT and DBJ. The government of the day under Prime Minister Patterson decided to purchase the property and they got the property for a fairly good deal. I won’t say what the price was, but it was a fairly good deal, and I see some people nodding their heads, they know what the price was. I’m not going to go into the history of what the price was, but the government got the property, and, in a way, it was important that the property was purchased.
The property was owned by an established British family so the property obviously passed through the colonial era, and so it was repatriated essentially, the ownership of the property and therefore, the seed was planted as to what this property could be. Let me read something to you here.
“Dear proponents, the Harmony Cove will be the most exclusive colony that the Caribbean has ever known. At this exquisite oasis, guests and residents will discover an array of estate villas, elegant homes, impeccably appointed townhouses, fine resort accommodations, and charming boutique hotels. Here guests, very whim and fancy, will be catered to and every heart’s desire fulfilled. This magnificent community has been inspired by Jamaica’s defining characteristics, a rich cultural heritage, and incomparable geographical landscape, and an exciting and colourful history. The selection process will demonstrate the required integrity, fairness, and transparency for the identification and selection of developers. The successful proponent will be the one whose proposal best fulfils the project’s vision and who has the requisite experience and financial strength to translate this vision into reality. Join us in realizing the dream of Harmony Cove, a unique AAA Five Diamond prestigious destination. We therefore invite you to accept the challenge and grasp the opportunity of realizing this vision.”
This was the cover letter in the request for proposals document developed in October 2004 and this was signed Kingsley Thomas, Chairman of the Harmonisation Limited. I have a copy of the original request for proposal document, so I consider this a birthday gift. It’s more than 21 years in the making from the conception of the idea to the launch of the project officially today.
Now, I came into this in 2016, and I took a flight to The Bahamas at the invitation of Christopher Anand, Nexus and his team to see what was happening with the project on which this would be modelled. It was really an attempt to get this administration interested in the project and to show that Nexus was still very much interested in doing the project and to win our confidence.
Now, this project meandered for many years. Prime Minister Patterson would’ve announced it in 2004 then there would’ve been other events supporting it. Prime Minister Golding supported it. In fact, wrote a letter committing the government to the fiscal support of the project. Then came the destruction caused by the global financial recession of 2008/ 2009 that knocked the project off kilter, then elections, then other commitments by the former Minister of Finance, Peter Phillips endorsing the original fiscal support that was given, but the project just couldn’t seem to get off the ground.
So, in 2016 when the invitation was extended, I visited. I took a team with me. I believe, I would’ve taken former Minister of Finance, Nigel Clarke. I believe Aubyn Hill may have accompanied me and it’s really good to visualize to see the physical representation of what the vision could be. And then I had certain thoughts about Chris. My thoughts about him are different now. And I’m sure those who knew Chris then would say Chris has mellowed now.
I’ve always seen myself as the builder. I like to build things. I like to be kinetically involved in getting things done. Yes, I’m a dreamer. I have visions too, and they are very important, but the critical thing at the end of the day is, did you get it done? That’s what really, really matters and so I came back, and I took advice on the project.
Now, a project of this magnitude for everyone who is gathered here, just to be clear, there are many risks involved in a project like this and governments have to be super careful. You cannot look at projects simply in a nominal way. You can’t just look at the numbers presented to you and say this looks good. Governments are not only concerned about the bottom line or the profitability. There are many other issues that would determine whether or not a project is successful, and governments that are in the position that Jamaica finds itself in is oftentimes “forced” to make decisions on projects that sound good on paper but when they are implemented, they create all kinds of challenges and problems.
I have decided that for Jamaica, we are going to be, first of all, very cautious in the investments that we undertake, but whatever investment we undertake, it must be for the benefit of the people of Jamaica. I’m looking here at a very distinguished audience, but I’m really speaking to the people in the Coronation Market or in the Trelawny Market in Duncans or in Stewart Town or Wakefield or Clark’s Town. This project is for you. You will benefit from this project. The entire Jamaica will benefit from this project. And I also say that the investors will make a profit from this project as well. This administration is pro the benefit of the people. We are not anti-profit. We don’t see the two things as opposing. We want projects to be profitable because it is only when the projects are profitable that the people can have sustainable benefits and that is the intersection that we try to achieve in this project.
The project laid fallow for maybe 11 years before I took it over. And the big question for us was, could we give the level of fiscal incentives that were originally promised? I use this big word, fiscal, and we use it all the time, and I’m really trying to find a way how to explain this to the vendor in the Coronation Market or in Duncan’s Market; what do we mean when we say fiscal. I’m not going to try to do it today but suffice to say that the government did not give up more than it had to for this project to be considered feasible. The public purse was not sacrificed to make this project profitable; that’s the best way to explain it. The people of Jamaica are going to get from this project significant benefits and in fact, more benefits than what we would’ve had to give as incentives.
And I want to say this because we are in a particular season and there is a particular attempt which is believed even by intelligent people, that the economic performance of this administration does not matter, that good governance does not matter. Let me tell you something, I used the term earlier, governments in our position are sometimes forced to make decisions that they end up regretting. When your debt is 150% of GDP and you get a $1 billion project, you are going to give as much incentives as you can.
In fact, sometimes you give away not just the house, you give the kitchen sink and the doghouse and everything with it just to secure the project because it is a promise that I could reduce this massive debt. When your unemployment rate is 13% and you get a project that says it’s a billion dollars, 1000 rooms, 3000 persons are going to be employed; you really don’t care what the long-term impacts are. You want to get those jobs in now. Can you see what poor economic outturns can do to governments in making investment decisions?
This government did not do that. We had, and Chris will tell you, a book really should be written about this, a book just about this alone- I see David Panton who is an author himself. He’s smiling because he knows a book really should be written on this. In fact, case studies should be done on this too in schools of government. Dissertations ought to be done on this. We engaged in very detailed negotiations that sometimes got very testy because there was a lot at stake, mind you on both sides and it’s important to say that it is good to have persons in government who understand business as well as government.
We understood the risks of our business partners and we were able to explain to them the risks to our public purse, the political risks, the environmental risks, the social risks, the climate change risks, the infrastructure risks and it was a long debate. Our partners, Nexus, they actually put in money and purchased additional lands to bring this up to over 2000 acres of flat land that could give the project much more viability; and it has pineapples on it.
They stayed the course. There were costs involved to keep this project going. They bore some of that, so we were literally joined at the hip, but the question is, for us to consummate the union, we have to sign the prenuptial, so everything is clear, and it took some time. We negotiated. Former Minister Clarke and the team from the Ministry of Finance, they deserve some commendation. I will take some of the shine off that and say it took too long. I got many calls of frustration including we’ve gotten an investor now and if we don’t sign now, the investor is going to leave. We understand so we eventually settle the tax issues and the other incentives and we’re here today with a very solid agreement that will form the corners within which this investment will operate.
There is a lesson to be learned that to attract investments, you must create incentives for investment. But if you have to give incentives for the investment to be profitable, you’re going to be stuck eventually paying for that investment; that needs to be said and understood. The notion of incentives attracting investments, if not properly managed, can end up being the government paying for the investment and so we are very careful not to be caught in that trap; that’s bad fiscal management.
How do you attract investment then if incentives are not the primary source of attraction? Chris, you said it. You came to Jamaica, and you saw that Jamaica has the most route flights coming in, most seats coming in even though they bad mouth us about crime and violence, we still have more people coming here and increasing year after year after year. You left your all-inclusive and went to Rick’s Cafe and you caught the vibe; you almost jumped off the cliff.
What I’m saying to you is that, and particularly for tourism investment, the lifestyle, the brand, the culture are incentives for people to invest, and Jamaica has that more than any other destination in the region. We must protect it. The challenge that we face is to make the person in the Duncans Market understand that brand Jamaica delivers value for them as it will deliver value for Harmony Cove.
So, when someone does something that reflects badly on Jamaica, it impacts them as well as Harmony Cove. Our brand is in the top five most recognized brands in the world. We should be getting much more from that. Other people have recognized that. I’ve seen a tin of ackee with the Jamaican flag and when I looked at it, it said made in Barbados; that’s the brand. I’m not speaking to this audience; I’m speaking to the people in Clark’s Town.
If your relative overseas goes in a supermarket in New York and they wanted to purchase canned pineapples, and on that shelf, there are literally hundreds of options and as they walk past the options and they see one with the Jamaican flag, which one you think they’re going to take? The one with the Jamaican flag. And if a tourist came here and dived off the cliff at West End in Negril and lived and went into that same supermarket looking for canned pineapples and they come across the one with the Jamaican flag on it, what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to purchase it.
But if there should be something coming up in a newspaper somewhere, 8 persons killed in a gang dispute in Jamaica, what do you think is going to likely to happen? Our Jamaicans may still go and purchase it, but it is quite likely psychologically in the back of the mind of that person who had the experience in Jamaica weighing that they had a good time but this violence, they may pass it and that’s one sale less.
And what does that one sale less translate into? It could be the very pineapple that you grew here in Jamaica which was processed and exported. The brand is valuable. That is why Tavistock and Nexus are here to leverage the brand, to position their product, to bring people here. Don’t destroy our brand with violence and un-Jamaican behaviour. Brand is an important asset in attracting investments in the country.
Good fiscal management of the economy is an important incentive in itself for attracting investment. You see all these hard negotiations that we have done with Chris and his team? They know from that that this government is not going to undertake nonsense policies to put their investments at risk. They know that now. They know that we are strong on tax policy, and we are not going to willy-nilly change tax policy on them. They know that when they lay out their next 20-year plan, they know what the tax levels are going to be with very strong certainty. We have given investors certainty.
They see how we have managed our debt, and they now recognize that this is not just a place to exploit brand and exploit good government- not in a bad term, not in a bad way when we use the word exploit. I could use another term, which is just to make use of, and that’s what we want businesspeople to do. We want them to make use of the brand, make use of good governance, but this is also a place where my capital can stay because that is the secret to growth and development. We want to make Jamaica a place where capital can stay, and I want you to think about this.
Jamaica is the only country in the region that has no capital or foreign exchange control. Think about that. Counterintuitive is that if you don’t have foreign exchange controls and you don’t have capital controls, then Tavistock and all of them are going to take out their money. But think of it in the reverse. If I know I can take out my money whenever I want and the government is going to do well, and the brand is good and my product is going to grow, what am I going to do? Why move my money? I’m going to keep it right here and that is exactly what this administration has done.
Now, it’s just for me to get the person who is selling in the market or working in the call centre to appreciate and understand the importance of that. That didn’t happen overnight. That is a deliberate strategy of this administration because the reverse policies could have been true. Have you ever wondered why our NIR is at the highest it has ever been in our history but yet we have no foreign exchange controls? We have a freely floating foreign exchange. It’s because we have given confidence to investors to keep their money here. So, you have come at the right time, Tavistock. You have come at the right time, Nexus. I’m not here to deliver an economic lecture, but to just make some point.
The other point I would like to make on this particular investment is that we have considered very carefully the environmental and social impacts of the development. We are going to be giving up probably the last pristine beachfront asset of this size for development, and therefore we have to be super careful what is being done here. And a lot can be done here so we will be in close partnership with you to ensure that not just the financial interests, but the social, cultural, and economic interests are maintained.
Now, for the developments that are happening in tourism, we have articulated a new policy direction and in our upcoming manifesto you will see more of it, that the history of tourism development in Jamaica is that we built the hotels and then the people came and the people had to find their way and so what you have is a juxtaposition of salubrious circumstances, and right next door it is despair. It runs in contradiction with the brand and the message and if we are going to fully have the benefit of the brand, we can’t build AAA Five Diamond hotels, and then right next door it’s abject poverty; that cannot happen again.
If you notice all the hotels that are being built now, new ones, they have to be putting up staff quarters or staff housing and that’s a must. And I’ve said it to Chris right here and I’m saying to you, Chris, it is important for your bottom line and for the brand, it’s important for the government that the staff here must be able to see their way to proper housing, so there would be provisions for housing. Now, you have enough land, and the concept is a community and so I would expect that there would be an inclusive approach with the people who live in the area and who will come about what this product is going to be because ultimately the product is the people.
Then we have also said that for our economy to grow, we need to increase the complexity of the economy and complexity is a kind of new way of looking at growth. It’s not just about increasing production and so forth. It’s about how do we make the industries come together to increase your production, so linkages are important and unfortunately tourism has grown in an all-exclusive way almost.
In the last decade or so, we have increased the lines of linkages, particularly with agriculture and some manufacturing and entertainment. It is not as strong as we would like. In our coming manifesto, you will see how we intend to improve the linkages with tourism. We have complaints about linkages with entertainment. Many of our entertainers feel that their product is being devalued and they’re not getting the full support of the tourism industry. The product that we offer must be diverse so we’re going to have entertainers from Cuba and the Dominican Republic because guests want variety, but the core must be the Jamaican culture, and it must be supported. And where they are shortcomings, we must work to develop them so I’m saying to you, Chris, that that studio is a good idea so let’s give them the assets to develop it. They, they must never feel that they don’t have a guaranteed place here.
Our manufacturers have also complained; the beds, the chairs, the sheets etc, we understand we won’t be able to produce everything, but we need to give them the line, give them long-term contracts so that they can invest and eventually they will build. We intend to have some discussions with you on how we are going to ensure that our manufacturers are keyed into this development, but the big one is agriculture.
There is no question in my mind that we have the capacity to supply most of what you need. We already supply- and I’m proud to say that in terms of chicken meat, we have the capabilities to supply that and we have been doing well with that but in most other things we can but we need tourism industry to provide our farmers with long-term supply contracts so that they have the certainty in making the level of investment to move from artisanal farmers and small farmers to commercial and industrial level agriculture, and that is what I would want to see in this project. And I will be personally picking up the phone and calling you Chris to say, how are we progressing with the linkages between the community agriculture in this area and what gets served on the plates here, very much so mutually beneficial. This project must result not just in the growth of the bottom line of the developers, but it must result in the growth of our GDP and in the growth of the households that are connected to it; that is the objective.
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me absolutely exquisite great pleasure to be able to be the Prime Minister to get this project done. I came here expecting a groundbreaking, but I guess you’re following what’s happening on the political scene so cut it. Yes, I’m here to cut more ribbons.
God bless you and thank you.