Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness says the gov­ern­ment in­tends to have Ja­maica es­tab­lished as a leader in lo­gis­tics and man­u­fac­tur­ing, as well as an in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion.

“Near­ly five decades ago, the Garmex Free Zone was es­tab­lished… and since then, it has been the cor­ner­stone of in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment in Ja­maica. It has be­come a cat­a­lyst for job cre­ation, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the 1980s and ear­ly 90s, em­ploy­ing at its peak, over 12,000 Ja­maicans,” Hol­ness said at the of­fi­cial open­ing of the first phase of the Garmex Free Zone Re­de­vel­op­ment and Ex­pan­sion project.

The project, which is ful­ly fund­ed by the Fac­to­ries Cor­po­ra­tion of Ja­maica Lim­it­ed (FCJ), is aimed at pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al space for man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics, ware­hous­ing, among oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties.

Phase one, which was com­plet­ed at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of J$1.1 bil­lion (One Ja­maica dol­lar=US$0.008 cents), in­cludes 31 units oc­cu­py­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 126,000 square feet of space. The units in­clude 22 mi­ni ware­hous­es for mi­cro, small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es, six mixed-use spaces and three ware­hous­es.

De­liv­er­ing the keynote ad­dress dur­ing the open­ing of the first phase of the Garmex Free Zone Re­de­vel­op­ment and Ex­pan­sion project, Hol­ness said the ex­pan­sion project is a clear in­di­ca­tor of the gov­ern­ment’s in­tent to have Ja­maica es­tab­lished as leader in lo­gis­tics and man­u­fac­tur­ing, and an in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion.

He com­mend­ed FCJ for the suc­cess­ful ex­e­cu­tion of phase one of the project that be­gan in May 2020.

“Over the years, this com­plex has evolved to serve as a hub for man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics, ware­hous­ing and even ed­u­ca­tion and health­care. To­day, it is the most di­verse free zone in Ja­maica and the largest com­mer­cial in­dus­tri­al com­plex on the is­land,” he said.

The new fa­cil­i­ties at Garmex Free Zone have gar­nered al­most J$200 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in rev­enue dur­ing its two year of op­er­a­tion to­date and FCJ chair­man, Lyt­tle­ton Shirley, said that in­fra­struc­ture work has com­menced for phase two, which in­volves the de­vel­op­ment of 5.7 acres of green­field land on the west side of the cam­pus to ex­pand the com­plex to meet the con­stant de­mand for com­mer­cial space.

He said that phase three is in the plan­ning stages and will in­clude a build­out of sev­er­al ware­hous­es and con­struc­tion of a com­mer­cial build­ing block, while the fourth phase will en­tail the mod­erni­sa­tion of old­er build­ings on the prop­er­ty, which will al­low for ver­ti­cal ex­pan­sion.

He said that FCJ will al­so be im­ple­ment­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prac­tices, in­clud­ing wa­ter har­vest­ing and so­lar en­er­gy.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Kingston West­ern, Desmond McKen­zie, in wel­com­ing the ex­pan­sion project, said it will have an eco­nom­ic and so­cial im­pact.

“This rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny is of tremen­dous im­por­tance to us. The Free Zone has been a long-stand­ing in­te­grat­ed fea­ture in the lives of the peo­ple of West Kingston. To­day’s cer­e­mo­ny is high­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed. The de­vel­op­ment… will def­i­nite­ly have an im­pact on the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty and ad­join­ing ar­eas,” McKen­zie said.

Last Oc­to­ber, Hol­ness said a new in­ter­na­tion­al air­port will be es­tab­lished in the tourist re­sort town of Ne­gril in the west­ern end of the is­land.

The Prime Min­is­ter who was speak­ing to trav­el ad­vi­sors at the San­dals Ja­maica Love sales event, al­so an­nounced the com­ing of a new pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal at the Sang­ster In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in the west­ern city of Mon­tego Bay.

He al­so men­tioned the on­go­ing US$320-mil­lion South coast high­way that will link Har­bour View in East Kingston to Port An­to­nio, in the east­ern parish of Port­land; the US$225-mil­lion perime­ter road be­ing built out of Mon­tego Bay; the Lucea by­pass road in the west­ern parish of Hanover that would “cost a mas­sive in­vest­ment” and “spend­ing, in five years, more mon­ey than had been spent in the pre­vi­ous 30 years” to make the coun­try more se­cure.

He added that the air­port projects would en­sure that vis­i­tors could move seam­less­ly through­out the is­land, bring­ing with it the de­vel­op­ment of tourism in the east­ern parish­es of Port­land and St Mary.

The Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Ja­maica (AAJ) iden­ti­fied a site for the es­tab­lish­ment of the coun­try’s fourth in­ter­na­tion­al air­port

Pres­i­dent and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of the AAJ, Au­d­ley Dei­drick, ex­plained that the di­rec­tive giv­en to the AAJ by the Gov­ern­ment was to de­ter­mine the ex­tent to which the Ne­gril Aero­drome could be up­grad­ed to an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, and con­sul­tants were hired to de­vel­op a mas­ter plan to trans­form the fa­cil­i­ty.

“We en­gaged con­sul­tants to do the nec­es­sary stud­ies and out of those stud­ies it has emerged that the present aero­drome is not suit­able for de­vel­op­ment of a ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, tak­ing flights us­ing air­craft the size of a Boe­ing 737, which is now the most com­mon air­craft utilised by air­lines for trans­port,” M\Dei­drick said.

He said that hav­ing done the re­search in the Ne­gril area, the con­sul­tants have lo­cat­ed an al­ter­na­tive site, which is with­in 15 to 20 min­utes of the tourism belt and the Ne­gril sev­en-mile beach.

Dei­drick said plans are now be­ing craft­ed for the de­vel­op­ment of this in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, which is ex­pect­ed to ease some of the pres­sure off the Sang­ster In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Mon­tego Bay.

“This is to al­le­vi­ate the chal­lenges that tourists fly­ing in­to Mon­tego Bay face get­ting in­to Ne­gril, a long jour­ney which, at times, can be­come longer de­pend­ing on traf­fic and road con­di­tions,” he not­ed.

The Pres­i­dent and CEO con­tend­ed that the es­tab­lish­ment of the fa­cil­i­ty will au­gur well for the growth of west­ern Ja­maica.

“In ad­di­tion to cater­ing to tourism traf­fic for the Ne­gril fa­cil­i­ties and prop­er­ties, we posit that an air­port in that part of Ja­maica will al­so open up the west­ern part of Ja­maica to var­i­ous forms of fur­ther eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” he not­ed.

Dei­drick said it could al­so be an al­ter­na­tive for per­sons in the west­ern parish­es of St. Eliz­a­beth, West­more­land, Hanover and even parts of St. James.

“That’s the pow­er of that air­port as we see it, and when that time comes and the Gov­ern­ment gives the nec­es­sary ap­proval to move in­to the con­struc­tion phase, I am pret­ty cer­tain that Ja­maica will be hap­py to hear that an­nounce­ment,” he added. (CMC)