The Jamaica Investment Forum – held last week in Montego Bay – was easily one of the most polished and well-executed investor’s conferences we’ve seen in a while in the Nearshore industry. Built to highlight a range of investment opportunities, including energy, tourism, manufacturing and BPO – Jamaica put its best foot forward by highlighting the positive. “We have to work with the hand we’ve been dealt,” said Prime Minster Portia Simpson-Miller, emphasizing her desire to boost the country’s competitiveness. Over 600 investors participated in the three-day program. Click “more” to see our slideshow.

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Jamaica’s growing reputation as a top Caribbean destination for investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and other key growth sectors is set to take centre stage on March 1-2, 2012, as the island lays out the red carpet for investors seeking opportunities in the region’s largest English-speaking economy.

The Jamaica Investment Forum 2012, which will be staged at the new Montego Bay Convention Centre, will focus on the business opportunities that exist in ICT, as well as other priority areas such as Tourism, Manufacturing and major privatization and development projects.

The Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller, will head a high profile slate of local and international speakers at the Forum, which is being organized by JAMPRO, the country’s investment promotion agency, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Compete Caribbean Programme. The opening of the event will feature presentations from Anthony Hylton, the …

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Source: The Washington Post

Jamaica’s first female prime minister has officially led her party to a landslide victory in general elections with final results announced Tuesday giving it a two-to-one margin in Parliament.

Portia Simpson Miller’s People’s National Party captured 42 seats in the country’s 63-seat Parliament and the incumbent Jamaica Labor Party just 21, according to official results from Thursday’s elections.

The count includes one more seat for the 66-year-old Simpson Miller’s party than was first announced in the preliminary results.

After a days-long recount, outgoing Commerce Minister Christopher Tufton was found to have lost his seat by just 13 votes, according to Elections Director Orrette Fisher. Officials had initially credited Tufton with a narrow win.

Walloped by the lopsided loss, dazed Jamaica Labor Party leaders are trying to figure out what went wrong. They have been in control of the government since 2007, when they ended a nearly two-decade …

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By K. Dominic McKenzie 

Jamaica’s BPO sector will receive an employment boost of up to 1,000 people when Convergys, one of the world’s contact center players fully staffs its new  Montego Bay operations in 2012. In a speech  this week, Dr. Christopher Tufton, Jamaican Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, said that Convergys will offer jobs for Jamaicans who are leaving secondary and tertiary education institutions. Jamaica currently has about 30 players in the local BPO industry – and the arrival of Convergys couldn’t have come at a better time, as Jamaica looks to accelerate ICT activity.

[caption id=”attachment_16600″ align=”alignright” width=”300″ caption=”From left: Patrick Casserly, ICT ambassador/special envoy in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce (MIIC); Sancia Bennett Templer, President of JAMPRO; Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce; and Phillip Gore, Chairman of the …

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– Company will provide employment for nearly 1,000 when fully staffed –

Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), one of the largest agent-assisted customer service companies in the world, and the Jamaican Government announced today plans to open the first Convergys Jamaican contact center. The center will be located in Montego Bay, and will employ nearly 1,000 people when fully staffed in 2012.

The Jamaican government strongly supports its BPO industry as part of its economic growth plans, and Montego Bay is the country’s hub for BPO providers, where most of Jamaica’s 30-plus BPO companies currently operate.

“We are very pleased to welcome Convergys to Jamaica,” notes Dr. Christopher Tufton, Jamaica’s Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce. “Known worldwide for providing multinational companies with highly effective and reliable customer management services and solutions, Convergys offers Jamaicans new employment and career opportunities in an industry with a bright future in Jamaica. Moreover, more jobs …

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Source: The Gleaner

Jamaica is at a crossroads. The recently published Global Competitiveness Report ranks the country as having the worst macroeconomy in the world (142nd out of 142 countries) despite the relative stability in key macroeconomic variables such as interest rate, the exchange rate, inflation and the country’s international reserves.

Further, the IMF report titled Regional Economic Outlook, Western Hemisphere: Shifting Winds, New Policy Challenges, published earlier this month, argued that poverty, unemployment and inequality in Jamaica are the worst in the Americas. Haiti, which is regarded as the poorest country in the Americas, has fared better than Jamaica in terms of its income distribution. Haiti’s GINI coefficient, the measure of wealth distribution in a country, stood at 59.2, while Jamaica scored 59.9.

A serious reading of Jamaica’s development challenges will show that there are serious structural problems in this country, and we are not addressing them. Sloganeering should not …

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Riding its record success and growth in 2011, RealDecoy is expanding its offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and especially its subsidiary, EffectiveSite, in Kingston, Jamaica. The company is expanding its Jamaican office an incredible 800 percent to accommodate plans to grow employee numbers by 500 percent. This, along with significant expansion across its other locations, is in keeping with the company’s on-going growth expectations. RealDecoy enables organizations of all sizes to maximize their web presence in order to achieve vital business objectives. They provide end-to-end web technology expertise around agile business intelligence, content management, ecommerce, enterprise and faceted search, and managed services.

Overall the number of employees at RealDecoy grew by 50 percent in 2011, coinciding with a remarkable 90 percent increase in revenue. Currently the company has 44 openings available and anticipates an ongoing need for increased staffing in the year ahead. The new facilities can accommodate RealDecoy’s immediate growth …

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Source: Caribbean 360 

Government will over the next few weeks unveil a five-point plan aimed at expanding Jamaica’s information and communications technology (ICT)/business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton, has announced.

This, he says, is with a view to doubling the number of jobs the sector currently provides, as well as enhancing the industry’s global competitiveness.

Dr. Tufton told a media briefing yesterday that the US$145 million local BPO industry accounts for six percent of the Caribbean and Latin American market, which is valued at US$2.5 billion.

The Minister said the local sector, which comprises approximately 26 firms, accounts for nearly 11,000 full time jobs.

He noted that analysts conservatively estimate that Jamaica’s ICT/BPO sector must grow at a compounded rate of between 20 and 21 percent per annum over the next four to five years, in order to remain competitive regionally.

Pointing out that at the …

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By Patrick Haller

Nearshore countries say they want the IT and BPO jobs, but some are apparently not willing or able to provide the office space those jobs require. Dynamics vary from location to location, but finding the right facilities for your business is not typically going to be simple. Here are five risks you should be aware of when sourcing real estate in the region.

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Source: Business Standard

BPO services provider Hinduja Global Solutions plans to foray into Jamaica with a greenfield centre by September this year, a top official told Reuters on Thursday.

The company, a part of the diversified Hinduja Group, has already got a letter of intent (LoI) from a Jamaican company to set up a 100-seater BPO centre in Jamaica to cater to the utilities vertical.

“We will start with hundred seats, but it will probably build out to about 500 seats,” Chief Executive Partha De Sarkar said, adding it is still too early to talk about the required investment in the centre.

The firm had cash and cash equivalents of Rs 468 crore. In February, Sarkar said he had plans to go to Latin America. Separately, he had earmarked Rs 50-60 crore for new BPO centres in FY12.

“We have not really found the kind of target that we were looking for,” in …

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