The eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship be­tween Ja­maica and In­dia has strength­ened over the last year.

Pres­i­dent of Ja­maica Pro­mo­tions Cor­po­ra­tion (JAM­PRO), Shul­lette Cox, said there has been a 26 per cent in­crease in trade be­tween the two na­tions, com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

“The part­ner­ship be­tween the two coun­tries has flour­ished over the few years, as ev­i­denced by the steady growth of bi­lat­er­al trade, which reached an im­pres­sive $116 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2023/2024,” she added.

Cox was speak­ing at a re­cent Busi­ness and Ethics event.

The event, or­gan­ised by the High Com­mis­sion of In­dia, was at­tend­ed by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the Diplo­mat­ic Corps and glob­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an and spir­i­tu­al leader, Gu­rudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Cox said that the up­ward tra­jec­to­ry re­flects the ded­i­ca­tion of both na­tions to nur­tur­ing mu­tu­al eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty.

She not­ed that over the last few years, JAM­PRO has wel­comed four del­e­ga­tions from In­dia, as well as fa­cil­i­tat­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Start-up Fund Glob­al CXO Sum­mit, held in June.

“This land­mark event brought in In­di­an del­e­ga­tions of 15 com­pa­nies to our shores and high­light­ed Ja­maica’s po­ten­tial as a hub for in­vest­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion in sec­tors, such as knowl­edge process out­sourc­ing, busi­ness process out­sourc­ing, Agri-tech, fin-tech and cre­ative in­dus­tries,” she added.

Cox said that dis­cus­sions at the sum­mit “opened new doors for strate­gic part­ner­ships,” not­ing that over the past year, JAM­PRO fa­cil­i­tat­ed two in­vest­ment projects with In­di­an part­ners, one in dig­i­tal ser­vices and the oth­er in agri­cul­ture.

“I be­lieve that this is on­ly a sign of even big­ger and bet­ter things to come,” she added.

Ac­cord­ing to Cox, dis­cus­sions have al­so fo­cused on fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion to boost Ja­maica’s film in­dus­try.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing talks on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Ja­maica-In­dia co-pro­duc­tion treaty, which will see more Ja­maican and In­di­an pro­duc­ers work­ing to­geth­er to tell the sto­ries of our shared his­to­ry and her­itage,” she said.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Dec. 19, CMC

CMC/jm/kb/2024