Jamaica Observer- A couple of quick key realities and a few key assumptions: (1) 80 per cent of the world’s hedge funds are registered in the Cayman Islands – Grand Cayman is a 40 minute plane ride from Jamaica: (2) an offshore financial centre requires quick incorporation of companies (a DHL package arrives at your door step within seven business days or less as an international customer with company documents), speedy transfer of real estate, et al – Jamaica is not timely with these issues and it is going to take a significant amount of time to train human capital, restructure operations with the appropriate technology, et al to make this a reality – hence, make necessary exceptions and implement necessary committee in interim.
(3) the issue of hedge funds eroding the ability of GOJ to raise debt locally – structure them with minimum principal requirement per investor (ie US$50,000 – US$100,000). In addition, these types of investments carry inherent risk – not for everyone. The local funding market for GOJ debt will not be affected by this product mix (4) the development of Jamaica will only be enhanced in numerous ways – picture Jamaica being viewed as a Emerging Market (EM) country like Mexico or Brazil, where our capital markets are realised and "Invest in Jamaica" ads are not only for tourism but for other sectors as well. Picture our minister of finance being on Bloomberg TV and/or CNBC, this is what we must strive to be and this area will lead to it.
Jamaica is an island where you can either be lying on the beach with a Red Stripe or in the hills having a Blue Mountain Coffee within 45 minutes; there aren’t many countries globally that one can do this in; Jamaica is Unique. An island perfectly located to North America for Wall Street to visit. When a Wall Street broker visits Jamaica and sips a Red Stripe or an Appleton or views the beach or hills, an optimistic feeling sets in. We need an industry that captures this feeling for him or her, benchmarked to global markets.
