Gov't braces for fallout

Dr. Phillips

WITH EVIDENCE of a fall-off in revenue from tourism and manifestations of the longer term effects on the island's economy, Transport and Works Minister Dr. Peter Phillips warned Jamaicans at the weekend to brace themselves for the fallout from last week's terrorist attacks on the United States.

Dr. Phillips noted that Jamaica has already suffered losses in airline revenue as a direct result of the attack and said with the downturn in tourism and the tightening of security at the sea and airports, the short to medium term prospects for the country were not good.

"Already the world has begun to feel the repercussions of the act against the centre of the world economy," said Dr. Phillips, while addressing the St. Andrew Junior Chamber banquet at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on Saturday.

"For the moment," he said, "the repercussions are largely psychological, but in the days, weeks and months to come, time will reveal the tangible bruises to the system of global politics and how reverberations will affect small nations such as ours."

The events in the United States should serve as a reminder of the interdependence of the world and the global village it has become, he said.

Dr. Phillips also used the opportunity to castigate the perpetrators, suggesting that "the loss of innocent lives and destruction caused by the attack against the United States was cowardly, unacceptable and must be condemned by all well-thinking peoples."

More than 5,000 people are feared dead in the wake of the terrorist attacks after four domestic United States airlines were hijacked and two of them guided into the World Trade Centre in New York and another in the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

All domestic and international flights into and out of the Unites States, including Air Jamaica's, were cancelled as a result of the attack. Air Jamaica resumed its international flights to the United States over the weekend, but airline officials said it would take some time before the situation returns to normal.

Thousands of would-be tourists to Jamaica have also cancelled their tour plans and only on Friday the international credit rating agency, Standard & Poor's, said investor uncertainty following the aerial attacks would inevitably curtail Jamaica's and other emerging markets' access to the international capital markets.

Local farmers are also said to be reeling from the effects of the terrorist attacks as many were forced to dump perishable agricultural produce prepared for export last week after the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) shut down United States' airports and directed that security measures in other countries be beefed up.

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