JAMONOMICS

Pricemart is one of my country's two real wholesale shops. The other is Megamart that to my knowledge has two branches. One branch is in Barbican and the other is in Portmore that is a satellite city to the capital.

Today there was the signing of the Confucius center to be built by the Chinese at the University of the West Indies Mona campus and this is of course as a result of the growing interest in Jamaica as a hub for exporting Chinese manufactured goods to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. The total population of this region is approaching some 900 million people and most of the countries rank as emerging markets of the developing world.

I am currently reading the book "the world is flat" by Thomas Friedman who postulates a great thesis and explains that through telecommunications, the Internet and greater technology in general, the world has become extremely small and hyper-charged. He explains in detail the evolution of Wal-Mart and how their success lied in their ability to become super-efficient through Supply Chaining.

I believe that the Jamaican Private sector should take advantage of this opportunity that has come solely from our strategic position in the Western World. I propose to business people in the country to explore the possibility of establishing a retailer store like Wal-Mart with headquarters in Jamaica that will have braches all across South and Central America to sell to and further develop these emerging markets with consumer items.

The rational behind this is that China is currently one of the worlds cheapest producers of manufactured items. Also the Wal-Mart model has shown us the benefits of taking advantage of crude and ingenious inventory management through giving the suppliers direct preview to sales figures so they can accurately match output to consumption. This is the direction the most successful type of retailing is going towards. This is proved by the fact that sales by Wal-Mart stores in the United States surpassed expected sales for the month of January in 2009 amidst the worst financial crisis the world has seen in over sixty years.

We as a country cannot afford for this opportunity to pass as annual sales of Wal-Mart that serves a population of about 400 million in the United States, is almost 30 times our Gross Domestic Product. If we are able to capture and take advantage of this market, it would not only boost our services sector, but we will also gain important links to a part of the developing world that we have neglected for so long.