Wes­ley Gib­bings

Con­tin­u­ing ten­sions be­tween Ja­maica and T&T are form­ing part of the back­drop to Thurs­day's launch of Ex­po Ja­maica 2016–the coun­try's largest trade ex­po­si­tion.

Or­gan­is­ers have es­ti­mat­ed that dur­ing the four days of show­cas­ing lo­cal­ly-man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts, up to US$2.5 mil­lion in busi­ness will be gen­er­at­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Ja­maica (PSOJ) William Mah­food has called for re­stric­tions on T&T im­ports in the face of what he claims was a breach of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) when a group of Ja­maican vis­i­tors were turned back at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on March 21.

The PSOJ is not di­rect­ly in­volved in the event, but many of its mem­bers have signed up for the mam­moth ex­po­si­tion.

A Ja­maica Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (JMA) an­i­mat­ed pub­lic ser­vice video en­ti­tled Ja­maica wins again, re­leased on­line last week, main­tained the high pitch of re­spons­es to the de­vel­op­ment.

A JMA re­lease has de­scribed the T&T im­mi­gra­tion stance as "di­vi­sive" since "the goal of has­sle-free move­ment is an en­shrined right which must not be held to the whims and fan­cies of any in­di­vid­ual or Mem­ber State."

The JMA video de­picts three com­peti­tors in a race against im­port­ed prod­ucts fea­tur­ing com­peti­tors clad in the na­tion­al colours of T&T, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica.

The race com­men­ta­tor calls on spec­ta­tors to sup­ports things made in Ja­maica in or­der to cre­ate more jobs and give peo­ple mon­ey to spend. In the end "Ja­maica wins!" ex­claims the com­men­ta­tor.

Yes­ter­day, Ja­maica Ex­porters' As­so­ci­a­tion (JEA) vice pres­i­dent Paul Lewis re­ferred to Ja­maica's "val­ued trad­ing part­ners in Cari­com" say­ing Ex­po or­gan­is­ers wel­comed the coun­try's re­gion­al busi­ness con­nec­tions this week.

"Like our crick­eters last week at the T20 and our ath­letes, mu­si­cians and var­ied tal­ents, we will con­tin­ue to punch above our weight in pro­vid­ing cham­pi­on goods and ser­vices to our val­ued trad­ing part­ners around the Cari­com re­gion and glob­al­ly," he told the T&T Guardian.

"We are look­ing for­ward to wel­com­ing them all to Ja­maica this week...and are thrilled at the busi­ness and ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties that will come to light from this dy­nam­ic ex­po­si­tion."

"Cham­pi­on break­throughs, cham­pi­on goods and ser­vice, cham­pi­on re­gion­al and glob­al trade. That's the agen­da." Lewis said.

Sev­er­al busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives from T&T are due to at­tend the ex­po un­der the theme The Busi­ness Hub of the Caribbean.

It is a col­lab­o­ra­tion in­volv­ing the coun­try's ma­jor busi­ness group­ings in­clud­ing the JMA, JEA, state run JAM­PRO Trade and In­vest­ment Ja­maica.

Ja­maica's Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade, Kam­i­na John­son Smith, has been quot­ed as say­ing talks with T&T For­eign Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses have be­gun in an at­tempt to re­solve the is­sue "at the po­lit­i­cal lev­el."