Another reader suggested the following: "I am thinking that as a Jamaican with some position of importance, you can quietly suggest to the Jamaican Govenrment that they engage the Chinese Government by agreeing to purchase enough solar panels to help reduce the glut in China and therefore provide a means, not only to create more than 200,000 well-paid, fairly labour-intensive jobs, but further reduce dependence on JPS while also reducing expenditure on petroleum products over the long term.
"The best thing about all this is that China would be willing to finance that project since we are buying their product and we will have a way of repaying the loan since the reduction in petroleum costs will go to that measure. The benefits are monumental.
"We spent over US$1.5 billion in 2010 for petroleum products. This is again possibly too good to be true for Jamaica, that has an oversupply of sun while China has an oversupply of solar panels and the additional pieces to reduce our overall power production costs for the next 25 years.
"The jobs are created by using carpenters, and semi-skilled [people] to install the panels on available areas for maximum exposure to the sun. There is one outstanding company operating there in Jamaica -- APS (Alternative Power Systems). They are installing systems around the island and they could tell you where the people would work. There are thousands of roofs that can be used, so that's where we need the people."
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