Ja­maica's Min­is­ter of Trans­port, Works and Hous­ing, Dr Omar Davies, is en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es to iden­ti­fy ways of col­lab­o­rat­ing with their Chi­nese coun­ter­parts in or­der to ex­ploit op­por­tu­ni­ties from in­vest­ment projects here and over­seas.

He urged the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty not see Chi­nese in­vest­ment in Ja­maica as a threat, but in­stead, look to the po­ten­tial cre­at­ed by these projects. He cit­ed the po­ten­tial de­vel­op­ment of a ma­jor lo­gis­tics cen­tre in Ja­maica as a pos­si­ble in­vest­ment prospect for lo­cal busi­ness­es.

Davies said the lo­cal pri­vate sec­tor has had a long his­to­ry of do­ing busi­ness with Chi­na, but that this has been "one-sided," fo­cused main­ly on the im­por­ta­tion of fin­ished Chi­nese prod­ucts. Davies was speak­ing re­cent­ly at a fo­rum on Do­ing Busi­ness With Chi­na, host­ed by the Ja­maica Chi­na Friend­ship As­so­ci­a­tion and the Em­bassy of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na.