Robert Buddan, Contributor
SOME VERY important events have happened in the past few weeks that signal Jamaica's increasing involvement in globalisation in a positive way. Jamaica and Trinidad have linked their stock exchanges into one market the size of which is equivalent to that of Venezuela or Peru.
The Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA) and Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) are successfully pursuing the Buy Jamaica/Build Jamaica campaign by marketing Jamaican products at home and abroad. Their recent trade show attracted a number of buyers and potential buyers from overseas.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Senator Delano Franklyn, held the Jamaica Diaspora Conference last week, which was well-attended and ended successfully.
In 1962, Norman Manley said, "Many of us dare to believe that this country may go into the world to make a contribution larger than our size would lead one to expect." Those daring Jamaicans have been proven right. The Jamaican people have now become the country's main globalisers.
The traditional geographical definition of Jamaica is no longer adequate. Jamaica is a transnational nation linked by a common people and their culture exchanging goods, services, money and ideas between an overseas and home community.
As Minister K.D. Knight noted, small size is not a deterrent to development. For this to be true we must see Jamaica as a transnational community.
Transnational corporations are the agents of western globalisation. Jamaica does not have transnational corporations but it has a transnational community of people encompassing the major countries of the world. As Prime Minister Patterson says, it is now time to build a nation without borders.
Many people discuss Jamaica in terms of how poor we are. I like to do so in terms of how rich we are. What we are poor at is tapping into and mobilising our wealth. The manufacturing sector has undeniably gone through a rough time, especially since 1995.
Now it has finally launched a campaign to show our manufacturing wealth and potential and is benefiting from this. Exporters also say they earned 40 per cent of Jamaica's non-traditional earnings last year. A recent report on the tourism and travel industries show that we are in the top four among Caribbean economies in tourism growth and that tourism contributes directly and indirectly to 36 per cent of GDP.
The conference on the diaspora highlights the fact that the Jamaican overseas economy is rich to the tune of US$40 billion. The timely appointment of Professor Gordon Shirley as Ambassador to the US moving as he will, from Director of the Mona Institute of Business, adds to our optimism that we can tap into this transnational wealth.
THE POLITICS OF THE DIASPORA
Politically, the diaspora has come of age. It has obtained representation in the government administration through a seven-man advisory board that will be consulted and asked to recommend policies to government. The diaspora will also have a functional body a foundation that will strengthen social and economic links between the overseas and home communities.
Ministers of Government have advised members of the diaspora about what they can do politically in their overseas communities. They can get involved in the political process to lobby for changes in trade laws so that those laws benefit smaller economies and the people who do business in those economies; lobby law enforcement agencies to deal with criminals in their own jurisdictions instead of dumping them in Jamaica and lobby international financial institutions to provide more funds to strengthen law enforcement in countries like Jamaica; lobby governments such as the government of Britain to make health benefits transferable to Jamaicans when they return home since this is one of the reasons hindering Jamaicans from returning.
For its own part, the Jamaican government and Jamaicans at home must continue to consider strengthening the electoral process to allow Jamaicans overseas to vote, and continue to discuss creating a senate seat to represent the affairs of the diaspora. One member of the diaspora suggested establishing a ministry of the diaspora, another idea worth considering.
THE ECONOMICS OF THE DIASPORA
Jamaicans must understand that regionalism and free trade areas are not just agreements between governments. They are frameworks created for Jamaican people through which Jamaicans at home and around the world can engage in economic enterprise.
For example, Jamaica is a part of deepening the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, The African, Caribbean and Pacific/European Union negotiations, and soon-to-be CARICOM/Canada negotiations. This means that Jamaicans living in the Caribbean, United States, Canada, and Europe will be able to take part in economic activity within established trade rules to engage their activities with the Jamaican economy.
For instance, it has long been known that Florida is an important part of the Caribbean economy. Mark Rosenberg and Jonathan Hiskey wrote that in 1990, Florida's GDP was US$240 billion, much greater than the combined GDP of the Caribbean Basin countries which was US$51 billion.
Florida was the leading trade partner of the Caribbean Basin countries and was, indeed, the 'gateway to the Americas'. It was a more important trading partner than South America, Mexico, Canada or the European community.
It is in this sense that the initiative of US Ambassador Sue Cobb towards building bridges with Florida is strategically sensible. This bridge-building formed the basis of a recent Trade Mission in Florida to which PSOJ President Beverley Lopez could speak about the many positives happening in the Jamaican economy while her compatriots showcased Jamaican products to business partner organisations in Florida.
This integration of the Jamaican and Florida economies has been a long time in coming. Jamaica is indeed a near-shore opportunity with unique advantages.
It is against this background that Jamaica's Consul General to the Southeast United States met with Florida delegates to the conference on the diaspora to mobilise them on issues of importance to both states. Of course, we must target other areas of the diaspora and the government is building a Trade Council with the Greater Philadelphia area.
Beverley Lopez and the PSOJ themselves must be given credit for the way they have activated the Partnership for Progress, an idea that similarly mobilised the Irish Diaspora for that country's development.
THE HUMAN RESOURCES
OF THE DIASPORA
It is good that the idea of a data bank of Jamaican talent overseas is to be created. This is a proposition from representatives in the diaspora taken up by the Jamaican government. K.D Knight referred to the wealth of talent that exists among Jamaicans at home and abroad.
Indeed, this talent can allow us to avoid the 'foreign experts' who have little familiarity or long-term stake in the development of Jamaica. Our best foreign experts are Jamaicans themselves who have developed expertise in a wide range of skills.
Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Dr. Wesley Hughes, put the issue of cultural wealth on the table. Globalisation of culture (music, for example) has great possibilities because this area is not restricted by trade agreements, tariffs, quotas and airport searches. We well know the potential of Jamaican music.
An International Reggae Day statement of 2001 put this matter in perspective: "Reggae music...the world's first true world beat...the brand that has firmly established Jamaica as a global player in the international cultural arena will be celebrated on July 1 as the world joins Jamaican media hosts in recognising the power and impact of Jamaica's most renown export brand." As globalisation, emerging technology and eroding trade concessions continue to negatively impact an economically depressed, socially challenged Third World island nation of Jamaica, music and cultural industries remain a viable option for economic growth.
The question is how (Jamaica can) create a model for financing/funding the sustainable development of music as an economic force with invaluable social and marketing value."
If this conference has done one thing it is to legitimise this conception of Jamaican globalisation. We are not merely victims of globalisation but creators of it and our creation goes back many years.
It is through the transnational Jamaican community that we have the best chance of making globalisation friendly to Jamaican people because it is their globalisation, not corporate globalisation, that will be served.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
