US$2.4 billion Melissa windfall: Minister Aubyn Hill tells Jamaican businesses to gear up to use the money

Minister of Industry, Investment & Commerce, Aubyn Hill is sounding a clarion call for local businesses to prepare themselves to access and utilise the US$2.4 billion in private investment from the international lending community to support Jamaica’s recovery, reconstruction, and private-sector-led growth following the impact of Hurricane Melissa. 

Speaking at the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) Regional Investments & Capital Markets Conference at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston yesterday, Hill trumpeted: “Yes, gear up to use the money and don’t complain when other investors come in. Get ready, we’ve got money to spend.” 

This money, he was referencing, is the US$2.4 billion in private investment mobilised by a group of multinational lending agencies led by IDB Invest and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank Group to support Jamaica’s recovery, reconstruction, and private-sector-led growth following the impact of Hurricane Melissa. 

This funding is part of a larger, unprecedented US$6.7 billion, three-year support package for Jamaica. The Minister urged private businesses, construction companies, goods and service providers and other local companies to position themselves to take advantage of opportunities being made available from this funding package, arguing that small firms can pool their resources together to be able to access contracts for reconstruction and repairs, in the event they are too small to win these contracts.  

Source: Our Today News Online