The Editor, Sir:

The prime minister and the Government are to be commended for presenting immediate measures to address the current economic crisis. However, we also have a tremendous opportunity to rethink our approaches to various sectors of our economy and we must learn from past lessons.

Tourism is far too dependent on North America and we now need to build markets in Europe, Latin America and the Far East. In 1990-91 Jamaica was faced with a recession, the first Gulf War, travel advisories from the United States and United Kingdom and the demise of Pan American and Eastern Airlines. What I, as director of tourism and others did then, was pull the entire industry together and presented Jamaica as an alternative destination to airlines in Europe (Iceland Air, Finnair, LTU and Condor, to name a few) as well as Japan Airlines and Sam Airlines in Colombia. The result was we were one of the few destinations in the Caribbean that increased our arrivals during the period and we moved from approximately 80 per cent dependence on North America, to 70 per cent.

Tourism earnings

Tourism earnings also increased from US$740 million in 1990 to over US$858 million in 1992. We can have similar results now, but there will need to be adjustments to the strategies and the countries and players in the airline industry that we target.

We now need urgently to revisit the agreement that was signed between the Port Authority and China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) in February 2005 to expand our port and logistics capabilities. COSCO is one of the fastest-growing shipping companies in the world and the highest- ranked Fortune 500 shipping company in the world in terms of profit, and would be an ideal partner to return our port to growth and profitability.

Traumatic experience

Alumina had a most traumatic experience in 1985 when Alcoa closed down their Halse Hall Alumina Plant, and, at the time, we were consi-dered crazy to reopen the plant. As the general manager of Clarendon Alumina Production Ltd, the government company which undertook the reopening of the plant, we not only operated the plant at a profit for over three years but used the profits to acquire 50 per cent of the ownership in the company and today this is why we have Jamalco.

I am not wishing this scenario to be repeated, but the point I am getting at is that when we Jamaicans put our minds and hearts to the wheel we can achieve almost impossible tasks.

The most important thing is to have confidence in ourselves and our ability to perform on par with or better than the best in any part of the world as we proved in the above scenarios and recently demonstrated in Beijing.

We now need to invite partners from overseas to invest in Jamaica, but we do not need to be totally dependent on foreign investors to turn around our economy. Let us also begin to facilitate the establishment of public companies and invite every Jamaican in Jamaica and the wider diaspora to invest in the turnaround of our country.

I am, etc.,

ROBERT STEPHENS

Pragma Consultants Ltd

bspragma@hotmail.com