JAMPRO to Host ‘Road Show USA’

The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) is to embark on a major two-year initiative, dubbed ‘Road Show USA’, primarily targetting the United States’ fresh produce and processed foods markets, for local exports.

Jampro Vice President for Export and Market Development, Robert Scott, says the undertaking, expected to get underway later this year, aims to increase export sales to points of distribution in the USA.

Speaking with JIS News following the entity’s joint staging of a seminar on good practices and business opportunities with the USA, Mr. Scott said the initiative is expected to target at least 10 local companies for participation, adding that activities “will cover a number of states.”

The objective, he explained, is to facilitate greater dialogue and engagement with US market stakeholders and, “create a laser-like focus on building exports.”

“So, it actually means going on the road and doing more missions into these markets in a structured way,” he explained.

Mr. Scott advised that JAMPRO’s Export Division, which will spearhead the initiative, is still in the early stages of planning and finalising the activities.

“We will be pulling teams together. We will be finding the companies, and we are really doing it in such a way that we go into certain cities, we speak to certain distributors, we speak to the supermarkets, and we put them together and start conversations, and then we follow the process through,” he added.

Underscoring the initiative’s importance, Mr. Scott pointed out that the United States is Jamaica’s largest trading partner, accounting for 45 per cent of the island’s non-traditional exports.

“This is the market with which we have the greatest affinity and closest ties. It is the one, in short, with which we are most familiar. (In this regard) it is not only useful but imperative that we have a good grasp of what it takes to access this mighty and diverse market of nearly 300 million,” he argued.