JAMPRO and Texas Caribbean Chamber host webinar for U.S. SMEs on investing in Jamaica

The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) and the Texas Caribbean Chamber of Commerce, Trade and Industry held an online session for United States small and medium enterprises weighing trade and investment with Jamaica. Marilyn Douglas Jones, the chamber's founding president, co-hosted alongside Jamaica's consul general in Miami, honorary consuls, and JAMPRO managers who answered questions in the chat.

Conrad Robinson, JAMPRO's manager for global digital services, said the agency packages projects, speeds approvals, runs matchmaking, shares intelligence, hosts inward missions, and handles film-related waivers to lift exports, investment, and local linkages. Agribusiness, logistics, global digital services, and tourism lead the priority list, while film, non-food manufacturing, and mining sit secondary. He cited no foreign-exchange controls, unrestricted foreign ownership and profit repatriation, Fitch and S&P ratings of BB minus and BB, strong air and sea connectivity, political stability, fixed broadband, an English-speaking workforce, and foreign land ownership.

Employment tax credits, asset relief, productive input relief on qualifying imports, and special economic zone treatment can set headline corporate income tax near twelve percent on eligible activity, with relief sometimes cutting the effective rate to about seven and a half percent. Logistics figures included roughly 3.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units annually, links to more than one hundred ports including Houston, about twenty-five shipping lines, six- to seven-day port-to-port cycles, and Texas flights to Montego Bay and Kingston near three and a half hours on major carriers.

Film commission work since 1984, Montego Bay outsourcing clusters ranked the leading Caribbean business-process outsourcing value destination for 2024 by Nearshore Americas, tourism growth with Portland and St. Thomas named for greenfield projects, and limestone and aggregates for Gulf construction supply chains rounded out sector slides. Honorary Consul Kani Omari Fitin welcomed diaspora engagement. Nicholas Sutherland, JAMPRO's new-market development manager, described economic diplomacy with the foreign ministry and stronger Trinidad and Tobago capital moving into Jamaican retail, manufacturing, and boutique hotels over the past seven years.

Panellists said the government does not fund private land purchases but leases public farmland competitively, reaffirmed ASYCUDA customs digitisation, and noted a long-term Kingston terminal arrangement involving CMA CGM with Kingston Wharves. Most cannabis licences require fifty-one percent ownership by a Jamaican citizen who need not reside locally, a data protection act has been operative for two and a half years, and artificial-intelligence copyright detail belongs with the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office. Tens of acres near Port of Kingston remain available for warehousing, though final-mile logistics faces entrenched local rivals. State grants and development finance chiefly target citizens living and paying taxes in Jamaica; Jamaican counsel should advise on residency and work permits.