PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica

The future for logistics and its myriad opportunities for increased economic activity can
be well seen along the alignment of Highway 2000. For example there are now
possibilities for businesses to locate in Mandeville and areas along the highway corridor
and comfortably conduct business in the Kingston Metropolitan Area.
More than that, however, is the opportunity to mobilize vast idle lands and underemployed
human resources that will attend two critical impediments to regaining
Jamaica’s prosperity – rural poverty and under performance of agriculture. Rural
poverty, among other factors drives the urban drift that brings thousands of unprepared
and low skilled workers to tech-savvy Kingston, only for them to fall into menial jobs,
unemployment, or criminal and sub-optimal activity.
While this drift occurs, increasing acreages of valuable and high potential agriculture
lands fall into disuse. Concomitantly the prospects for global food shortages loom large
and food consumes an increasing share of Jamaica’s import bill, currently at over $800
million United States dollars annually (STATIN, 2011).
Figure 9.6. Jamaica’s Road Network – Linking Agriculture and Tourism Destinations to
Ports, Markets and Capital
Source: Google Maps, 2011
The map highlights the routes of several major Jamaican agricultural producing parishes and tourist destinations. Jamaica
has an extensive road network but due to poor conditions of the roads linking the north coast to the capital (K), travel
times and wear and tear on vehicles are significantly increased when moving freight and people to port facilities,
markets, and the capital city. These place additional monetary and opportunity costs on businesses and invariably reduce
the productivity and economic growth of the economy.
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