JCC 41st Annual Awards Banquet Honors Firms That Kept Investing After Hurricane Melissa

The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) marked its 41st Annual Awards Banquet under the theme Building Forward, using the occasion to salute businesses that sustained standards, investment, and job creation through the uncertainty that followed Hurricane Melissa.

President Emile Laiba, presiding over his first awards ceremony in the role, told the gathering that recovery demands more than applause for past success. "At the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, we believe that building forward requires more than celebrating success," he said. "It requires creating the conditions in which businesses and communities can thrive."

Laiba pointed to the storm as a test of national character, saying Jamaicans responded with collaboration over rivalry, service ahead of self-interest, and action rather than rhetoric. He argued that resilience shows not in easy times but when plans fail, roofs vanish, access roads wash away, or power cuts out. The honorees, he said, were anchor firms that kept adapting, innovating, and strengthening the economy even as several hard-hit sectors contracted.

Keynote speaker Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness urged executives to look beyond restoring what Melissa destroyed and instead build for resurgence. He promoted the National Recovery Agency (NARA) as the channel for aligned reconstruction work, telling firms with projects of US$15 million or more that fit resilience and government priorities to bring proposals forward. Holness said the spending pipeline through NARA would amount to the largest economic intervention in a generation for the chamber's more than 200-year history, with potential to lift gross domestic product by more than 20%.

Award recipients included Chef Brian Lumley of Foodie Focus Limited (Entrepreneur Award), Sagicor Group Jamaica Limited (Marketing Excellence), and National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (environmental, social, and governance). Joan Lattie Realty won the micro category, Epic Technologies the small category, Allied Insurance Broker the medium category, Chas E. Ramson Limited the large category, and Seprod Group the extra-large category.