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Prime Minister Bruce Golding has said that Jamaica has so far failed to adapt to the competitiveness of the globalised world, and emphasised that the country must look at niche markets if it is to significantly grow its exports.
Golding, in his keynote address at the launch of the National Export Strategy at the Jamaica Pegasus yesterday, said that while the world market has become more volatile for smaller countries like Jamaica due to globalisation, there are an abundance of opportunities that the island has been too slow in taking advantage of.
"What we are now confronted with is a seamless, borderless world where oceans and artificial boundaries are there only for the purpose of checking passports," said Golding. "The world is now one huge marketplace and we have been assigned a little stall; whether or not that remains a stall or becomes a massive supermarket is not the world's responsibility.
"We as a country were slow in first of all understanding the nature of the changes that were taking place," added the prime minister. "We tend as we do so often to become frightened and intimidated by change, so we put down the shutters and battened down because we felt that this was a natural disaster that was about to occur."
The prime minister blasted persons who he believes are wasting time in complaining about perceived inequalities rather than being proactive in seeking to compete effectively.
"Let us not spend too much time in cursing the darkness; let us not spend so much time in thinking of how good things were when they were what they were; and for God sakes let us disabuse our mind that there are some wicked white people somewhere that did us a bad thing and therefore we must spend the rest of our existence pursuing some restitution," Golding argued. "The world is yawning whenever we talk that sort of rubbish; we better get going and we better start looking at that stall and see to what extent we can build that little stall that we have."
Noting the immense market potential for Jamaican products, Golding said that one of the aims of the National Export Strategy, which is a unified national strategy to advance the competitiveness of firms and sectors while enhancing the business and trade environment in order to improve Jamaica's export performance, will be to agressively identify the country's strongest products and corresponding consumer markets.
"The market is like a lady's cosmetic section of a department store; (consumers) are searching for a particular type of a lipstick," noted the prime minister in his address. "That's the nature of the market and therefore we have to find out what is that particular shade of lipstick that we are good at producing and we know that there are people who are searching for that particular shade."
Marjory Kennedy, president of the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA), lauded the initiative, highlighting that the island needs to formulate strategies to diversify its export market and enhance trade facilitation to improve the cross-sectorial strategies and to enhance the competiveness of Jamaican firms.
Golding, in his keynote address at the launch of the National Export Strategy at the Jamaica Pegasus yesterday, said that while the world market has become more volatile for smaller countries like Jamaica due to globalisation, there are an abundance of opportunities that the island has been too slow in taking advantage of.
"What we are now confronted with is a seamless, borderless world where oceans and artificial boundaries are there only for the purpose of checking passports," said Golding. "The world is now one huge marketplace and we have been assigned a little stall; whether or not that remains a stall or becomes a massive supermarket is not the world's responsibility.
"We as a country were slow in first of all understanding the nature of the changes that were taking place," added the prime minister. "We tend as we do so often to become frightened and intimidated by change, so we put down the shutters and battened down because we felt that this was a natural disaster that was about to occur."
The prime minister blasted persons who he believes are wasting time in complaining about perceived inequalities rather than being proactive in seeking to compete effectively.
"Let us not spend too much time in cursing the darkness; let us not spend so much time in thinking of how good things were when they were what they were; and for God sakes let us disabuse our mind that there are some wicked white people somewhere that did us a bad thing and therefore we must spend the rest of our existence pursuing some restitution," Golding argued. "The world is yawning whenever we talk that sort of rubbish; we better get going and we better start looking at that stall and see to what extent we can build that little stall that we have."
Noting the immense market potential for Jamaican products, Golding said that one of the aims of the National Export Strategy, which is a unified national strategy to advance the competitiveness of firms and sectors while enhancing the business and trade environment in order to improve Jamaica's export performance, will be to agressively identify the country's strongest products and corresponding consumer markets.
"The market is like a lady's cosmetic section of a department store; (consumers) are searching for a particular type of a lipstick," noted the prime minister in his address. "That's the nature of the market and therefore we have to find out what is that particular shade of lipstick that we are good at producing and we know that there are people who are searching for that particular shade."
Marjory Kennedy, president of the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA), lauded the initiative, highlighting that the island needs to formulate strategies to diversify its export market and enhance trade facilitation to improve the cross-sectorial strategies and to enhance the competiveness of Jamaican firms.