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Misplaced Caymanas project should be moved to HWY 2K zone
...leff agricultural lands fi agriculture..... good ting
We had this discussion a year or more ago
Agri's silver lining from Samuda's troubled project
Published: Tuesday | August 3, 2010
We always had our doubts about Investment and Commerce Minister Karl Samuda's ambitious project for the development, with Chinese money, of 1,000 acres of land in the St Catherine plains into a kind of import/export business district, which he branded the Caymanas Enterprise Zone.
This project, which Mr Samuda estimated would cost US$3 billion, or over $260 billion, and employ 10,000, has many of the elements of Edward Seaga's stillborn plan to transform much of the same area and large swathes of the Kingston harbour into a Panama-style free zone and is of the same mould as the former prime minister's idea to use the old, inefficient Petrojam as the hub of a petro-chemical industry in Jamaica.
As reported by this newspaper, Mr Samuda now says there is a delay in the enterprise because the Government's potential private Chinese partners want to link the development of the Caymanas lands with the control of the port of Kingston, which the administration plans to divest - which we expect to be by public tender and/or listing on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
Seriously assessing
"This has come as a disappointment, but the Government is seriously assessing the situation," said Mr Samuda.
We, of course, are surprised that he could be surprised. After all, when Mr Samuda first spoke of the project, many people, notwithstanding any doubts they may have had about it being financed, suggested that there seemed to be a natural fit between that idea and control/management of the trans-shipment port that is now owned by the Port Authority of Jamaica.
But there is a potential silver lining behind the dark cloud of Mr Samuda's disappointment, if he and the administration care to look.
The land that is/was to be appropriated for Mr Samuda's project, including 200 acres with which the minister says he will proceed for an industrial estate, represents some of the best and most fertile farmland in Jamaica. It used to be under sugar cane and bits of it were recently leased to the Worthy Park sugar factory to provide sugar cane to enhance the company's throughput. Worthy Park's lease is, however, tenuous because of Mr Samuda's scheme.
Drop the idea
We believe the Government should drop the idea of the Caymanas Enterprise Zone altogether - the project can be moved elsewhere - and return the land to agriculture, starting with sugar cane. Indeed, the Government is about, it says, to finalise the sale of its remaining three sugar factories - Frome, Bernard Lodge and Monymusk - to a Chinese government-owned enterprise, which we are told has plans for sugar refining and ethanol. That suggests that there will be demand for sugar cane.
But even if that is not the case, this newspaper, and the portfolio minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, have been making more than a credible case for the development of a modern and efficient agricultural sector. Indeed, the agriculture ministry estimates that Jamaica could replace or substitute up to a third (US$260 million) of its food import bill, if there were the appropriate investment in agro-processing and protection for the farm sector.
But you can't build a modern, efficient agricultural/agro-processing sector if your best farmland is under concrete and steel, whether for industrial plant or new villages.
We had this discussion a year or more ago
Agri's silver lining from Samuda's troubled project
Published: Tuesday | August 3, 2010
We always had our doubts about Investment and Commerce Minister Karl Samuda's ambitious project for the development, with Chinese money, of 1,000 acres of land in the St Catherine plains into a kind of import/export business district, which he branded the Caymanas Enterprise Zone.
This project, which Mr Samuda estimated would cost US$3 billion, or over $260 billion, and employ 10,000, has many of the elements of Edward Seaga's stillborn plan to transform much of the same area and large swathes of the Kingston harbour into a Panama-style free zone and is of the same mould as the former prime minister's idea to use the old, inefficient Petrojam as the hub of a petro-chemical industry in Jamaica.
As reported by this newspaper, Mr Samuda now says there is a delay in the enterprise because the Government's potential private Chinese partners want to link the development of the Caymanas lands with the control of the port of Kingston, which the administration plans to divest - which we expect to be by public tender and/or listing on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
Seriously assessing
"This has come as a disappointment, but the Government is seriously assessing the situation," said Mr Samuda.
We, of course, are surprised that he could be surprised. After all, when Mr Samuda first spoke of the project, many people, notwithstanding any doubts they may have had about it being financed, suggested that there seemed to be a natural fit between that idea and control/management of the trans-shipment port that is now owned by the Port Authority of Jamaica.
But there is a potential silver lining behind the dark cloud of Mr Samuda's disappointment, if he and the administration care to look.
The land that is/was to be appropriated for Mr Samuda's project, including 200 acres with which the minister says he will proceed for an industrial estate, represents some of the best and most fertile farmland in Jamaica. It used to be under sugar cane and bits of it were recently leased to the Worthy Park sugar factory to provide sugar cane to enhance the company's throughput. Worthy Park's lease is, however, tenuous because of Mr Samuda's scheme.
Drop the idea
We believe the Government should drop the idea of the Caymanas Enterprise Zone altogether - the project can be moved elsewhere - and return the land to agriculture, starting with sugar cane. Indeed, the Government is about, it says, to finalise the sale of its remaining three sugar factories - Frome, Bernard Lodge and Monymusk - to a Chinese government-owned enterprise, which we are told has plans for sugar refining and ethanol. That suggests that there will be demand for sugar cane.
But even if that is not the case, this newspaper, and the portfolio minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, have been making more than a credible case for the development of a modern and efficient agricultural sector. Indeed, the agriculture ministry estimates that Jamaica could replace or substitute up to a third (US$260 million) of its food import bill, if there were the appropriate investment in agro-processing and protection for the farm sector.
But you can't build a modern, efficient agricultural/agro-processing sector if your best farmland is under concrete and steel, whether for industrial plant or new villages.
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