They still ask: Why doesn't Jamaica grow?....

[ReggaeMike]

the fact is we are living in the info age as mi brethren Jawge say which make it easier. What I am advocating is if you can conquer the disaspora market as Royal Caribbean did, As VP record did then you can go mainstream. Look at Royal caribbean now the biggest supplier to Walmart and other supermarket chain, also now have the contract with the military to supply the US military. They started out concentrating on the diaspora. so many other companies out of Jamaica has been able to carve out a decent living doing this, such as Grace Kennedy, Red Stripe etc. and then they go mainstream.

The first move for a company is survival then to move into niche market that has disposable income and that the disaspora have, then go mainstream. We have some of the world best Coffee which is not even sold on the open market, Cocoa, Ginger, Yam, If the haitians and the mexican can be supplier of fluxy mangoes why we can't export our Julie and East Indians and I bet you the demand wouldn't just there for only Jamaicans.

Again there are many niche market which we fail to capitalise on.

But Royal Caribbean is based in the US, so they don't face the regulations required by say a Grace Kennedy to access the US market and it's subset Jamaican diaspora. It is also (and has always been to my knowledge) a Norwegian-American company. And they started out as any other cruise ship company by casting their net wide to get as many people as possible onto their ships. By the way, what is it that Royal Caribbean supplies to Walmart and the US military? Or are you talking about a different Royal Caribbean?

Coffee, Cocoa, Ginger and Mangoes I can see as being generally accepted. Yams and Ackees, not so much. Those would really be niche products and unlike say Mexico we don't have a diaspora numbering close to 12% of the US population (30 million).

[Assasin]

Sorry I mean't Royal Caribbean Bakery by Vincent Hosang suppliing beef Patties. In the case of Ackee we may have to deal with regulation to the US but no such regulation exist in Canada and the UK.

You don't have to have 12% to find a niche market. It would be nice to have that but Jamaican companies can find it profitable supplying stuff at the right price. For most part we do a poor job of selling. What we need is people to find the loopholes and the market for the products and act accordingly.

I go to the supper market I see Brazillian Yam, Costa Rican Yam etc. Now with Usain Bolt been a salesman for Jamaican Yam there could a good market place to putt our product in the market.

Again Red Stripe took advantage. We have concentrated on making paper money and others even the caribbean concentrate on blocking us out the markets without any fight. Time for a change, if the Blue soap company in Ja can be growing market share by exporting, many others can.

[Assasin]

this is what I am talking about. the kind of business that take advantage of the market that exists.

Dr Dhiru Tanna: The man with the power

Published: Monday | September 14, 2009



Nadisha Hunter, Gleaner Writer

Dr Dhiru Tanna, managing [COLOR=orange !important][COLOR=orange !important]director[/COLOR][/COLOR] of Blue Power Limited, explains how he overcame the numerous challenges at the company. - Photos by Peta-Gaye Clachar/Freelance Photographer
HE WAS warned that the manufacturing sector was not an easy road to trod. Nonetheless, [COLOR=orange !important][COLOR=orange !important]entrepreneur[/COLOR][/COLOR] Dr Dhiru Tanna gathered the 11-member team he had at his former hardware store in downtown Kingston, marched into that 'forbidden sector' and launched his Blue Power soap.
Tanna closed the downtown [COLOR=orange !important][COLOR=orange !important]business[/COLOR][/COLOR] to consolidate his efforts in a similar operation he had in Papine, St Andrew.
He turned to the to the laundry-soap business because Jamaica has the largest soap market in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
For some time, he sang the blues, but today he is [COLOR=orange !important][COLOR=orange !important]singing[/COLOR][/COLOR] a different tune. Success.
With a persistent attitude, he said he was prepared for a win-or-lose battle. He wanted to determine whether soap manufacturing on a moderate scale could be successfully set up in the country.
He was soon to realise, however, that there was some amount of truth behind the caution statements about the manufacturing process. But he never lost hope.
"Everyone was right; it was very difficult and it has been a slow, painful process," he argued.
"Manufacturing is a very difficult business in Jamaica because the energy cost is very high, the country is not properly geared for [COLOR=orange !important][COLOR=orange !important]manufacturers[/COLOR][/COLOR] in terms of parts for the equipment and, of course, the competition with well-established brands is a problem."
No growth
The first two years were fruitless, as there was little or no profit generated from the business.
"Every morning, I came here and I wondered why I had given up a good business (hardware) which was profitable to start this business," he lamented.
"We talked to persons and let them try the product, stick to a low price in the market and ensure the quality is good, which wasn't an easy thing to do because we ended up losing a lot of money."
Tanna's perseverance

( L - R )Sterling, Lamont
Challenges almost crippled his efforts, but Tanna's persistence pushed the business to success.
Seven years ago in an interview with The Gleaner, he disclosed that the company had 10 per cent of the domestic consumption of laundry soap in Jamaica.
At that time, he stated that his ultimate goal was to capture 30-40 per cent of the local market, this he said he fought assiduously to achieve.
Those figures are now corresponding with his dreams.
While expanding his market locally, Tanna says export markets have generated a lot of revenue for the company.
He is also looking forward to reaping the rewards from carbolic soap, which was just launched on the market and bathing soaps which he will be rolling out soon.
Market acceptance of the product is also being built by working with distributors, such as LASCO Distributors, GraceKennedy, Hi-Lo, H.D. Hopwood, Payless Distribu-tors and Barco Caribbean, to produce soaps.
The growing success of the business has improved the lives of several individuals on staff, which was recently increased to 15.
A boost for employees
Senior supervisor, Kenneth Lamont, started working at Blue Power soap since its inception. Prior to that, he used to stick around at the hardware. He swept the place in the mornings for a stipend and he would wait on customers to hire his vehicle.
Lamont, who resides in Hillside Crescent, Kingston, disclosed that back then, it was rough for him to survive, "as it was only hand-to-mouth" existence.
He could only provide the basics for his two children and he was not pleased.
"I now own a house and can better provide for my family," Lamont revealed with a smile.
Thirty-five-year-old Arlene Sterling is no different. Her position was made redundant, rendering her husband the sole breadwinner in the family.
She said Blue Power soap has changed her life significantly.
"I have achieved a lot since I start working here which include a small variety store. She said: "I am living more comfortably because I love to be independent."
Pauline Campbell packaging cake soap at Blue Power Limited.

[ReggaeMike]

Oh, okay now I understand.

Yeah that could work.

Yams and Ackees though are really a super-niche product. The vast majority of Americans, Canadians and Britons wouldn't even know what to do with them much less desire to eat them. They are almost like chocolate grasshoppers.

Beer, Mangoes, Ginger, Coffee and Cocoa though have the potential to do fairly well generally.

[Assasin]

Once Jerk was like Ackee. Nobody knew what was Jerk but now even companies with no connection to Jamaica making Jerk sause and Jerk meat is now more than just in a small market. I am not looking for Yam to be mainstraim but a lot of South Americans and central use it and we don't have to sell it in traditional form. We have to find ways to can it, cook it and ship it etc.

[Don1]

Well how else would you explain the unusual nature of the economy since 1962?

Which other countries do you know which experienced a rising standard of living alongside rising unemployment?

How else do you explain why Barbados' standard of living has more less always been on the increase no matter what was going on in the world whilst our standard of living seems to mirror events? Plus what policies can be cited as being in common between Seaga in 1987 to 1989, Manley in 1989 to 1992 and PJ Patterson between 1992 and 1996? Note the graph shows a definite upward trend in the standard of living over 1987 to 1996 with basically nothing to indicate changes in administration which might indicate changes in policy being responsible for this upward trend.

On the other hand there were definitely external events which more or less coincide with these time periods - the recovery after Black Monday in 1987, CBI II, CaribCan, falling oil prices, Mexican accession to NAFTA, the drop in interest by the US and rising oil prices in the mid-1990s. Nothing that Seaga did between 1980 and 1987 seemed to do anything and the free zones established between 1976 and 1985 certainly don't show any effect on the chart, so what did our leaders do between 1987 and 1996 to cause a rise in living standards?


How is it that others prepare better to meet these external crisis than we do? Simple: They prepare; we don't. Mauritius or one of those islands in the Indian Ocean prepared itself for the end of sugar by diversifying it's agriculture to include ornamental flowers, fruit trees and various vegetables. We just sat around believing that Lome would continue forever and then bawled when the EU brought about changes. Tell you what to answer your own question, name 5 ways in which Seaga, Manley or Patterson prepared the country for any external crisis of note. I'm drawing blank (maybe you can think of something). I can't consider the CBI or CBI II to be the work of Seaga or Manley because it was a US initiative and involved more than just Jamaica and the USA (Seaga can trumpet it all he wants, the fact is the US was aiming to do something like CBI in order to weaken leftists movements in the region and I don't consider hanging on to someone else's coattails to be "preparation" - in any case the first CBI in 1984 had no noticeable effect on the graph). Similarly CaribCan is a Canadian government initiative. In fact I can't think of anything that Jamaica has done over 1985 to 1996 that even approached the scale of Barbados' 1993 Wage and Price Protocol (and this in a country with the land area of Hanover and the population of St. James).

This is a nice technical discussion... but...you guys can track & analyse Jamaica's economics & prescribe policy fixes til kingdom come & assign blame to this or that policy or administration.... you will not thereby get to the truth or more importantly to the SOLUTION to unlock our path to progress.

The solution does not lie fundamentally in improved economic policy....although this is an important issue. Jamaicans and Jamaica are victimized largely by bad POLITICS and bad SOCIOLOGY which results in tremendously negative social capital....overwhelming any chance of sustained economic advancement.

Until that issue is properly addressed we are going nowhere....fast.

Barbados, Costa Rica, Mauritius etc progress because they practice good politics & good sociology and produce thereby tremendous social capital...rendering whatever economic policy they pursue (even if sub optimal) more likely to succeed than ANY policy Jamaica implements.

Jamaica has its policy prescriptions backwards....and produces the equivalent results.

We just don't realize the conundrum...much less do we as a nation have any idea how to fix it.

[ReggaeMike]

This is a nice technical discussion... but...you guys can track & analyse Jamaica's economics & prescribe policy fixes til kingdom come & assign blame to this or that policy or administration.... you will not thereby get to the truth or more importantly to the SOLUTION to unlock our path to progress.

Well I wasn't aiming at the solution in my discussion (although I have inferred it in the discussion and elsewhere). I was mainly noting that it wasn't just ONE administration which resulted in Jamaica's problems but ALL of them. Every last one from 1962 and that as a result of their failures the problems cumulated and possibly contributed to more problems. So the inattention towards bauxite's unemployment problems in the 1960s probably made it easier for people to accept Michael Manley's "better mus' come" argument since there was a large pool of unemployed who would have wanted "better" and more people were becoming unemployed while the rest of the country experienced growth. Then Manley implemented ruinous policies and Seaga took the political violence to a new level by believing that two wrongs DO equal a right and helping to create the mother of all garrisons instead of trying to dismantle the embryonic PNP garrisons in places like Matthews Lane. So now that politics got even more embroiled with crime, it helped to stifle growth and deter investment, which in turn provided more able and willing lieutenants for organized crime.

The solution does not lie fundamentally in improved economic policy....although this is an important issue. Jamaicans and Jamaica are victimized largely by bad POLITICS and bad SOCIOLOGY which results in tremendously negative social capital....overwhelming any chance of sustained economic advancement.

Until that issue is properly addressed we are going nowhere....fast.

Barbados, Costa Rica, Mauritius etc progress because they practice good politics & good sociology and produce thereby tremendous social capital...rendering whatever economic policy they pursue (even if sub optimal) more likely to succeed than ANY policy Jamaica implements.

Jamaica has its policy prescriptions backwards....and produces the equivalent results.

We just don't realize the conundrum...much less do we as a nation have any idea how to fix it.

The solution as you said is better politics and a better society/sociological relations and the root solution is education. Without it people become even worse than other animals out there - so we see people living in squalor when even some wild and domesticated animals kept in captivity will usually not sh*t where they sleep or eat. A wholesale, holistic education is key. Although we may share exams and curricula with countries like Bim and T&T we don't share their dedication to proper education. If children aren't taught to respect rights, values, property and themselves then we get the society we have today where it is considered okay to steal, okay to mandate theft, okay not to work, okay to cut corners, okay to drive badly, okay to bribe and where some businesses fail simply because people don't have the knowledge to succeed (which is why non-Jamaican companies keep snapping up our local companies). Some do well, especially those who utilize their education, but far too many others don't. Thus we end up with a culture where a number of businesses are more interested in getting as much as they can out of people with extortionist prices instead of trying to get as much customers as they can and get as many returning customers as they can by making themselves more efficient and cutting costs and thus the price consumers pay (and in the process making themselves more attractive to customers and thus more competitive compared to similar businesses).

I would be willing to bet that the education in Barbados, Costa Rica and Mauritius is far superior to what we experience in Jamaica. In fact in that NPR podcast that Islandman gave us all a link to, we can clearly hear the difference as described by the reporter, where Jamaica's inner city schools don't have funds to replace old fashioned chalkboards with white boards (and the principal has to do it out of his own pocket), whereas the closest thing to an inner city school in Bim apparently has a television for the children.

As Frederick Douglass supposedly said "to educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave." Over time the neglect of our leaders and their purposeful indoctrination has re-enslaved most of the island mentally. The politicians have even re-enslaved themselves as they are now slaves to the dons (gives a new meaning to Golding's self-description as "chief servant"....chief servant of Dudus!) and unable to pursue (as you pointed out) any coherent economic policy (even a sub-optimal one) that is likely to result in prosperity.

[Don1]

Well I wasn't aiming at the solution in my discussion (although I have inferred it in the discussion and elsewhere). I was mainly noting that it wasn't just ONE administration which resulted in Jamaica's problems but ALL of them. Every last one from 1962 and that as a result of their failures the problems cumulated and possibly contributed to more problems. So the inattention towards bauxite's unemployment problems in the 1960s probably made it easier for people to accept Michael Manley's "better mus' come" argument since there was a large pool of unemployed who would have wanted "better" and more people were becoming unemployed while the rest of the country experienced growth. Then Manley implemented ruinous policies and Seaga took the political violence to a new level by believing that two wrongs DO equal a right and helping to create the mother of all garrisons instead of trying to dismantle the embryonic PNP garrisons in places like Matthews Lane. So now that politics got even more embroiled with crime, it helped to stifle growth and deter investment, which in turn provided more able and willing lieutenants for organized crime.




The solution as you said is better politics and a better society/sociological relations and the root solution is education. Without it people become even worse than other animals out there - so we see people living in squalor when even some wild and domesticated animals kept in captivity will usually not sh*t where they sleep or eat. A wholesale, holistic education is key. Although we may share exams and curricula with countries like Bim and T&T we don't share their dedication to proper education. If children aren't taught to respect rights, values, property and themselves then we get the society we have today where it is considered okay to steal, okay to mandate theft, okay not to work, okay to cut corners, okay to drive badly, okay to bribe and where some businesses fail simply because people don't have the knowledge to succeed (which is why non-Jamaican companies keep snapping up our local companies). Some do well, especially those who utilize their education, but far too many others don't. Thus we end up with a culture where a number of businesses are more interested in getting as much as they can out of people with extortionist prices instead of trying to get as much customers as they can and get as many returning customers as they can by making themselves more efficient and cutting costs and thus the price consumers pay (and in the process making themselves more attractive to customers and thus more competitive compared to similar businesses).

I would be willing to bet that the education in Barbados, Costa Rica and Mauritius is far superior to what we experience in Jamaica. In fact in that NPR podcast that Islandman gave us all a link to, we can clearly hear the difference as described by the reporter, where Jamaica's inner city schools don't have funds to replace old fashioned chalkboards with white boards (and the principal has to do it out of his own pocket), whereas the closest thing to an inner city school in Bim apparently has a television for the children.

As Frederick Douglass supposedly said "to educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave." Over time the neglect of our leaders and their purposeful indoctrination has re-enslaved most of the island mentally. The politicians have even re-enslaved themselves as they are now slaves to the dons (gives a new meaning to Golding's self-description as "chief servant"....chief servant of Dudus!) and unable to pursue (as you pointed out) any coherent economic policy (even a sub-optimal one) that is likely to result in prosperity.

Glad that we agree.

Respek

[Don1]

Prophecy ah fulfill

This is a nice technical discussion... but...you guys can track & analyse Jamaica's economics & prescribe policy fixes til kingdom come & assign blame to this or that policy or administration.... you will not thereby get to the truth or more importantly to the SOLUTION to unlock our path to progress.

The solution does not lie fundamentally in improved economic policy....although this is an important issue. Jamaicans and Jamaica are victimized largely by bad POLITICS and bad SOCIOLOGY which results in tremendously negative social capital....overwhelming any chance of sustained economic advancement.

Until that issue is properly addressed we are going nowhere....fast.

Barbados, Costa Rica, Mauritius etc progress because they practice good politics & good sociology and produce thereby tremendous social capital...rendering whatever economic policy they pursue (even if sub optimal) more likely to succeed than ANY policy Jamaica implements.

Jamaica has its policy prescriptions backwards....and produces the equivalent results.

We just don't realize the conundrum...much less do we as a nation have any idea how to fix it.

Social Contract = Social Cohesion = A sliver of a chance to progress

[Jangle]

Just seeing this. Excellent point sir.

[Don1]

Just seeing this. Excellent point sir.

yuhseeit