Official Commissioning of Carib Cement’s Debottleneck Project, Rockfort Facility
Remarks
by
Dr the Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Official Commissioning of Carib Cement’s Debottleneck Project,
Rockfort Facility
On
June 26, 2025
___________________________________________________________
Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much, Chad. I’m going to be economical and efficient with time, so let me greet everyone. I must make mention of the mayor, who is the first citizen of our lovely capital.
Today, we take another crucial step in Jamaica’s pursuit of industrialization, self-sufficiency, and sustained economic growth. I was pleased to be here in August 2022 at the groundbreaking for this project, and today I’m even more pleased to be back for the commissioning. At that time, the member of parliament for the area, which is a little bit under dispute because the speaker of the house, who is someone I know very well and the member of Parliament for the adjoining constituency both claim the factory, the Caribbean Cement Plant, but you know where I would side with.
I’m noticing that MP Paulwell is not here, so I take that he has conceded to MP Juliet Holness, Speaker of the House. But at that time, both were here, and they were all very pleased at this major investment, and today I’m thrilled to be here to see the commissioning.
This is approximately US$42 million is the equivalent of 7 billion Jamaican dollars, and this is significant. Now, there may be those wondering why I am here, gloating over a private sector investment. It’s not the government’s investment; that is where you make the mistake. Carib Cement, which is owned by a multinational corporation, would not put its capital at risk if it were not certain of the economic programme and economic policies of the government of Jamaica. There is an attempt to make the government ineffectual. There is an attempt to suggest that the government doesn’t matter. There is an attempt to disconnect the achievements of the government from the efforts of the government. There is an attempt to make it seem as if countries can run without government, and there are persons who are vested in this and feed into a narrative, which is a narrative born out of frustration.
I want you for a moment to think that there were many years before now when this plant had no investment, when the prospect for the plant was never for its expansion, when the plant was up for sale because its future was uncertain. What changed? Well, the government changed. The government policies changed to more effective policies, and it is these effective policies that would’ve changed the outlook of investors in the company. I go through this because it is important that our population understands that government matters. Your government, the people whom you elect to administer your business matters.
It underscores our commitment to creating a resilient and diversified industrial base that can withstand global economic volatility, and it couldn’t come at a better time. Jamaica is in a phase of robust transformation. We are modernizing our infrastructure, reforming our institutions and restoring confidence in our economy. At the centre of this transformation is our commitment to housing and industrial development; two sectors in which we must evolve together. Let me explain this concept a little bit.
For decades, Jamaica’s housing sector has been hobbled by a mismatch between demand and supply. We have made significant headway in increasing the number of housing starts, reducing processing time, and investing in new housing solutions for working and middle-class Jamaicans, but none of this can be sustained unless we also transform the industrial backbone that supports the construction sector and that, my friends, would be cement production mainly.
The prospects of the cement company and other industrial activities are not only bolstered by the government’s good fiscal management of the economy, which gives certainty for taxes and certainty for other policy prescriptions, but we are also creating markets for the products so the economic outlook for the cement company and other industrial endeavours looks promising. Cement is the lifeblood of construction, and it’s not just housing; it’s also in road construction. It forms the foundation for housing, bridges, schools, hospitals, and factories. When local demand for cement outpaces supply, as has increasingly been the case, we are forced to import, adding costs, creating delays, and increasing our dependence on external supply chains.
These vulnerabilities have only been exacerbated by recent global disruptions from the pandemic-related logistics breaks down breakdowns to inflationary pressures and geopolitical tensions. Now, with this skill expansion, Caribbean Cement is decisively addressing that problem by increasing and stabilizing clinker production at the Rockford facility. We’re not only meeting local demand, we’re building Jamaica’s industrial base. This means more timely delivery of cement for housing projects, fewer delays in critical infrastructure works, and a more predictable cost base for developers and contractors across the country.
Moreover, this project directly supports our housing ambitions. From 2016 to today, this government has delivered more housing starts than any previous administration. We have launched the New Social Housing Programme for the most vulnerable. We have reformed the NHT to allow greater access to financing, and we are well on our way to creating a more efficient, faster approving and more accountable land titling system that will facilitate more private construction activity.
But even as we reform policy and mobilize capital, we need industrial capacity to keep pace. We cannot house our people if the fundamental inputs, like cement, are constrained by outdated or overstretched production capacity. And this is the link between industrialization and social transformation. When we invest in factories, we invest in our families. When we strengthen our productive capacity, we strengthen our national development. And this project does more than support housing. It supports jobs; the construction phase employed scores of engineers, tradesmen and technicians. I want to pause at this point.
When the bauxite industry was established in Jamaica, going almost 70 years, the benefit was not only the value of the exported bauxite. The value was the creation of an engineering class, which is so critical to any form of development. I use the term engineer as an umbrella term. It was the creation of a STEM class: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The development of these skills in society for its future development is indispensable, and as I survey the audience, I’m seeing the STEM class in our country.
Unfortunately, the historical development of our education system has placed greater emphasis on certain other streams of education, and while that has helped us and has developed a very powerful creative class of Jamaicans, we have to have a balanced development. We have to develop on all streams. And so when our industrial base died, we lost our STEM class, and it is becoming now a great difficulty for us to rebuild our industrial base, our manufacturing base, but more so in the information age to rebuild our tech age, our tech class, the people who will become our data engineers and our data scientists, the people who are our programmers and data engineers, the people who will bring us into the artificial intelligence and cyber age, that is where we must focus our effort.
I’m happy to see that Carib Cement is doing well and it is expanding and investing because the investment is not only in the kiln, it is in the engineers and the technical staff that manage these things, because once you invest in your STEM class, whether it is in Carib Cement, or in the bauxite company, or in the logistics, or in the BPOs, or in the knowledge processing centers that we intend to attract, what we are developing is a capability that is more valuable than oil.
The minister said something which we should not take for granted. If you go to Guyana, you’re going to see the Guyanese economy moving very rapidly, and they’re building, so they’re literally rebuilding their built environment with new buildings, new roads, airports, ports, all kinds of things and the allusion to cranes. Cranes are the symbol of development. You’re seeing the same thing happen in Jamaica. Maybe not as grand and rapid a scale, but it is happening here as well. What is the difference?
Guyana has discovered oil, so the development in Guyana is resource-driven. It is driven by a natural resource, oil. Take away the oil, and you wouldn’t have the engine of growth there. What is driving the development here? Did we discover oil? What is driving the demand for cement? What is driving the demand for more housing? What’s driving the demand for more roads? What’s driving the demand for more ports to be built? What’s driving the demand here? What is it that is our engine of growth?
So yes, it comes down to government policy. It is an intangible resource. Think for a moment, the government of Guyana decided that it would give a cash transfer to every household, about US$400, thereabouts. It would pay CSEC fees, and it would give a grant to young people. And where did that come from? Came from the oil revenues. It’s the oil revenues.
The
Government of Jamaica decided that we would give a reverse tax credit, that we would cut the GCT on electricity to give back, and that we recently announced the Solidarity Programme, a $1 billion give-back to persons who were not captured in any of the social safety net programmes. Where did that resource come from? That is the dividends from good management of the economy.
Reluctantly, you may not agree, but think of it, was it ever possible before? Promises were better to take GCT off electricity, didn’t happen. Promises were made to give back taxes, and that never happened. It only happened because government matters and there’s a point that I have to drive home at every event, because sometimes we can take government for granted. Government matters.
The analogy which I’m drawing between Guyana and Jamaica, with the ability to take care of its citizens, good government and good governance, is a resource that is equivalent to a natural resource like oil. And having the resource as well, residing in our people having technical capabilities and technical skills, is also a powerful resource because it is with these technical capabilities, paired with good government, that we will be able to totally rebuild Jamaica.
We could not rebuild this plant without the good policies that gave confidence to the investors to put down 7 billion Jamaican dollars, and we could not rebuild this plant without the local, and we would have brought in some overseas technical expertise, but without the core local expertise to operate this plant and make sure that this plant is the Premier League winner heading towards the championship.
The two things are critical: good government and a strong, well-trained, technically capable labour force. And I’m here feeling very happy that we have this emerging in our society, and I’ve been breaking ground, commissioning, opening, doing all kinds of things, almost every day I’m doing something of that nature and it shows you that the pace of Jamaica’s rebirth is expanding and expanding rapidly.
If you could replay the clip of James Bond, which I’m not asking you to do now, but something struck me immediately as I saw it. That would’ve been in the 1950s, maybe early 60s. Dr No would be the 60s, and you would’ve seen the scene of the plant and the driving on that roadway and looking at the harbour, not much has changed. You could still identify exactly where this was. Not much has changed, and it speaks to the pace at which our economy was able to generate the revenues for us to continue the buildout of our built environment.
The roadway is practically the same. We haven’t done much revetment to the harbour side. The hillside still looks the same. For us to start to really make an impact, we must increase the pace of our industrial development, and I’ve been speaking about the industrial development of the country more and more, and Carib Cement is a critical element to this. We can’t rebuild the communities of Central Kingston, Harbour View, the entire Kingston. We can’t rebuild those communities that are now in urban blight without a properly functioning cement corporation in Jamaica that can deliver the cement at an affordable price with greater efficiency, so this is a strategic investment for Jamaica. And indeed, I would say that this is a partnership that we must ensure that that partnership works and that partnership lasts.
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about exporting, as Minister Hill has pointed out. Recently, I heard a report that our exports fell in February. For Jamaica to become a true industrialized power, we have to figure out the energy situation. That is a real challenge for us, expanding our manufacturing base. You have two options for exports; it’s either you’re going to export by virtue of efficiency, so you are the lowest cost, or you’re going to export because you’re the highest quality. The cost is not the primary endeavour. In cement, I think quality is relatively standardized, so if you’re going to export, it must be on price and efficiency
Getting the energy prices down is critical. We have engaged in several programmes. One of them would be the tire recycling and utilizing the tire in some of your kiln operations. And I know that that has assisted, but it’s still not enough, so we need to see greater investments in bringing down the cost of energy to ensure that the price of cement remains stable and the quality remains high as well.
But the government of Jamaica has to take some additional measures as it relates to energy prices generally in the country. Our energy costs are way too high. We have taken a set of measures on the demand side. We have reduced the GCT on electricity, as I’ve said. We have introduced some subsidies and support for households to be able to get onto the grid to reduce the non-technical losses, and we are supporting the introduction of prepaid metering to give greater options to households, but we have to go greater in the introduction of renewables in the grid and we have to take other steps and other measures to ensure that the structure of our electricity market is such that we remove any inefficiencies that may cause the electricity price to be higher than it is normally. So, I wish to take this opportunity to speak to a high energy user, to say to you that the government is looking very carefully and will very soon take some decisions that will, in the near term result in a stabilization, if not a reduction in energy costs to both consumers and manufacturers because this is critical to our industrial days.
I also want to say a word to the wider private sector. Government has created the space, and now we ask the private sector to step forward boldly, invest in your plant, upgrade your facilities, train your workers, and expand your exports. And two days ago, I was the guest speaker at the reopening of an old textile mill that was closed for decades. A plant that was built in the 50s, closed for decades, the Ariguanabo Plant, some of you may know it.
I certainly knew it because I passed it on a regular basis, because I used to live in Spanish Town, but that plant was the lifeblood, the extent of the economy of Spanish Town for many years. It employed thousands of people, provided textiles and clothing, and exported, but of course, the history of our economic decline and that plant was clothed.
I was very happy to see that plant reopen, where private sector persons took a risk, inevitably they will spend about US$50 million when it is all complete to reopen and revitalize that 15-acre plant. It is a special economic zone, and it will have the capacity to house not just logistics and warehousing, but BPOs as well, and there will be some facilitation for manufacturing to happen in that area.
And again, why is it happening now? It’s not because Jamaica discovered oil. It is because good government policies made the investment possible, and there are those who will say, well, this is only going to benefit the private sector, which is a notion that we must always confront, tackle, and dispel. Already 2000 persons are employed in that special economic zone, and when it is complete, 5,000 persons will be employed.
That’s not just private sector, everybody benefit and that happened in nine months. They took on almost 2000 persons in nine months but not just that, if you knew the area, that plant in its state depressed the entire area. Now that the plant is up, everybody is in a better state. People whose housing value was impacted by a derelict plant, those houses, their values have gone up; all the communities around it, their values have gone up. The income being generated will support businesses through and through Spanish, and it is likely that as a result of that, other businesses will come on board.
I want to make the point that the government’s policy is critical to supporting investment, but I wanted to give you some more details as to what are some of the policies. It’s not just the stability in taxation, it’s not the fact that the debt has gone down, and it’s not only the stable dollar but in the recent budget we introduce something called the accelerated capital allowance investment in equipment.
Factories and other commercial buildings up to December 2026 can benefit from this. If you have investment plans and the table, I encourage you to bring them forward and take advantage of this incentive. This is the Accelerated Capital Allowance investments in equipment, factories, and other commercial buildings so if you have a plant that you want to build, now is the time to build it before December 2026 so you can take advantage of the accelerated capital allowance. That means you can bring forward more of the depreciated value of the asset into your current financials and that gives you less tax obligations.
These are just some of the policies that we have put in place that keen business people who are paying attention to the business environment can say, that investment that I’ve been thinking about, maybe now is the time to actually do it. And so it is these kinds of policies why you would understand. Cranes are going up in Guyana because of oil, but cranes are going up in Jamaica because of policy.
So to the people of Jamaica, what we do today may seem like a corporate affair, but it’ll soon be felt, if not being felt already in everyday life. It will be seen in the speed at which housing is built, in the cost of housing, it will be evident in the jobs created. I should have said as well, that this investment has been done with great environmental sensitivity. I know that you are now reducing the dust impact of the investment. Your emissions have been reduced by five times below the NNRCA standards, and I should commend the management. What we’re doing here is also felt in the confidence of business and consumers, and this is how we’re going to rebuild Jamaica by a solid partnership, good government, good policies, good enterprise, good investors, and of course, a solid labour force;` technical and competent, and who understands their role in ensuring that Jamaica achieves its true potential which is a country that is growing, expanding, a country that is peaceful and productive, and a country that is fair and prosperous for all.
So, I close my presentation to you today, and every time I make my presentations, I’m cognizant. I survey the audience, and I know that some of the things I say are jarring. And they’re jarring because for decades we have perceived things one way. We have fed and absorbed and believed false narratives and it will take time for the real message of what is happening in Jamaica to come to your understanding. But when I say to you that the cranes are going up in Guyana because of oil, but they’re going up here because of good policy, that is an incontrovertible, uncontested fact. There has been no discovery of any mineral or other natural resource in Jamaica other than the reigniting of Jamaican Enterprise, the employment of Jamaican labour and the creation of policies that support enterprise and labour, that is what it filters down to. And if you stop for a moment and think about it, you will see that that is the fact. And therefore, you have one choice and that choice is to choose Jamaica.
God bless you and thank you.