Current Business Environment in Country is Best in Decades – PM Holness
Prime Minister Andrew Holness says that the current business environment in Jamaica is the best it has been in decades as businesses reported profits that exceeded their expectations in the last quarter.
The Prime Minister asserted that business owners should be confident, He says Government policies will be in favour of business development, economic growth, and job creation.
“What we have been able to convey to business people is that there is fiscal certainty that you can plan your business, that you can take the risk, because Government policies are stable and the plans the Government makes, not just what they are doing now but what they are saying, they are going to do that; they will actually do it and you can plan accordingly,” said PM Holness.
Speaking this week at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Cari-Med Group Distribution Centre in Bernard Lodge, St, Catherine, Prime Minister Holness stated that the fundamentals of the Jamaican economy are strong as its last rating was at a B+.
Prime Minister Holness asserted that the Government of Jamaica has committed to never making fiscal errors that were made in the past by previous administrations.
“The case is that this is the best business environment we have seen in many decades. So, when I listened further to the report as to why it is that business confidence declined a little bit, the explanation was that business people in the present quarter earned profits above expectations and therefore they were not expecting that this super normal profit will continue into the future, now that is a good problem to have. But it is the case that for several quarters of business confidence improved as reduction in business confidence one quarter does not in any way suggest a change in the trend, that this is a prediction of expectations. So, it is the psychology of economics operating,” said Prime Minister Holness.
In closing Prime Minister Holness, appealed to corporate entities to maintain good corporate social responsibilities.
According to Prime Minister Holness, while corporate entities benefit through making a profit, the people within the surrounding communities should be included either by way of employment or community outreach programmes as a means of improving the problem of equity in the island.
“It is very important that we recognize the duty we have for good customer service and corporate social responsibility that helps to balance the equity issue because, make no mistake about it, the development of the country is not only going to come because people are investing, we still have to solve the issue of the unequal distribution of opportunities, the inequality in the income gap and those are things that never escape me as Prime Minister and escape my Government in every single thing that we do,” said Prime Minister Holness.
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