The Editor Sir,

Julian Reynolds' letter in The Gleaner of July 3 quotes me as saying that "capital was no longer the main barrier or constraint to investment from a national perspective". Mr. Reynolds finds this "offensive" and "detrimental" to Jamaica's future. I find his conclusion odd. However, if it will help him, I would like to clarify.

My saying that capital is no longer the "main barrier or constraint to investment" does not imply that other issues are unimportant.

Remember Mr. Reynolds, only one thing can be the 'main' thing, at a point in time. Further, saying that capital is not the "main barrier or constraint to investment from a national perspective" does not imply that individuals would have no difficulty accessing capital. I am well aware that for poorly capitalised individuals or small firms, with limited social connections, accessing funding is difficult.

Capital available globally

Individual access to finances, however, was not the subject of my presentation. My focus was on the vast amount of capital available globally and the fact that as a country we had to use our talented people to tap into this pool to drive national development.

I am most concerned about the fact that we need more talented people who are "inventive, innovative and entrepreneurial" in all spheres - the public and private sectors and non-governmental organisations.

Although Mr. Reynolds quoted me, he did the opposite of what I did. I linked all three to show that it was the confluence of these qualities that will propel us forward. Mr Reynolds separated the three, singling out "entrepreneurs". What are entrepreneurs if they lack creativity and the liability to adapt in a dynamic world?The lack of sufficient talented people in the public sector partly explains why we have an insufficiently responsive bureaucracy at both the local and national levels.

As the global economy has evolved, the main basis of wealth creation has shifted from land to factories and now cyberspace. A century ago, capital was a scarcer resource than land or labour. Today, the scarcer resource is talent (intellectual capital), which, when combined with information technology, is the means of production most likely to produce wealth.

Shift to intellectual capital

Many very talented people have great difficulty in accessing needed finances to drive their businesses because many of our institutions (both public and private) are rooted in the old paradigm of economic development. Very few financial institutions have the capacity to evaluate proposals based mainly on a 'novel idea'. They are changing but, like many institutions everywhere, the pace is rather slow. This may account for the impatience evident in Mr. Reynolds' letter when he speaks to the lack of support from financial institutions for "creative and pragmatic projects".

Mr. Reynolds ends his letter by stating rather grandly "that the problem is not the lack of entrepreneurs. It is that finance capital is undemocratic in Jamaica". I am not sure what this means, but it does not negate my main point, which is, that from a global and national perspective, talent (intellectual capital) is scarcer than financial capital and that we should re-order our incentive system to attract, nurture and retain the best talent in our private and public sector institutions.

I am, etc;

WESLEY HUGHES

Director General

Planning Institute of Jamaica