By making public the fact that it has now moved the country’s agriculture sector to the top of its agenda (ahead of tourism) in terms of targeting foreign investment for the country, the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), the country’s national investment and export promotion agency, has paraded its credentials for leading rather than following, insofar as setting an agenda for the country’s foreign investment pursuits in the period ahead is concerned.

JAMPRO, since its creation in 1988, has been the standout service and product promotion/marketing entity in the Caribbean, its successes winning Jamaica an enviable reputation for the aggressive and frankly, outstanding promotion of the country’s goods and services abroad, notably in major international markets.

If the decision to place investment in agriculture ahead of tourism at this juncture may come as a surprise to some, it points to JAMPRO’s confidence in its ability to make an informed assessment of what the country’s investment priorities ought to be at any point in time and to give strategic direction to the dispersing of Jamaica’s investment-garnering effort.

Take the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), whose responsibility, these past thirty five years, has been to provide “marketing services to stakeholders (farmers, agro-processors, exporters) of the non-traditional agricultural sector,” One might ask whether an agency so ideally positioned to simultaneously support both domestic and external product promotion could not as well be suitably expanded to play a role in helping to attract foreign investment in those same sectors, not least agro-processing.

JAMPRO works, it seems, because there is sufficient political confidence in its accomplishments which sometimes does not appear to be the case with some of the so-called semi-autonomous state-run agencies in Guyana where, invariably, there is a political minder peering over the entity’s shoulder.

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