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The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) officially launched its Corporate Finance Broker (CFB) unit yesterday (Jan. 31), which will offer financial assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is expected that in the first instance, the unit will attract clients from those private sector members, who have received assistance under the European Union/Government of Jamaica-funded Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP)....

Commissioner of Police, Lucius Thomas has reported a 23 per cent decrease in the number of murders committed this month, when compared to January 2005. The Police Commissioner, who was disclosing criminal statistics for 2005 to journalists at the Police Officers' Club yesterday (Jan. 31), informed that 113 murders were committed up to the end of January as opposed to...

Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad Tobago, the six CARICOM member states, which adopted the Single Market on January 1, yesterday (January 30), signed the formal declaration signaling the launch of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus. Member countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica,...

Cabinet has approved the appointment of the Land Development and Utilization Commission, and the Advisory Board to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA). Both bodies are associated with the Ministry of Land and Environment. Information Minister, Senator Burchell Whiteman made the disclosure today (Jan. 31) at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House. The Senator informed journalists that...

Freight forwarders, shipping and airline agents can expect to see a 50 per cent reduction in the processing time of cargo when the Jamaica Customs Department introduces the electronic manifest system, tomorrow (February 1), at APM Terminals (Berth 11). Speaking with JIS News, Nadine Shirley-Moore, Director, Information Management Unit, Jamaica Customs Department, explained that, "the processing time as it relates...

A panel of senior Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) officers have called on Jamaicans in the Diaspora to work with the JCF to fight crime. The team of three, which included Deputy Commissioner, Charles Scarlett of the Intelligence Unit, Assistant Commissioner Glenmore Hinds of Operation Kingfish and Inspector V. C. Campbell of the Narcotics Unit were speaking at a recent community...

A pilot project of tagging and providing a 'passport' for animals in the cattle industry, to prevent praedial larceny as well as diseases, has been progressing smoothly since its introduction in September 2005. Implemented under the Animal Identification System, plastic and metal tags have been affixed to the ear of each head of cattle, with numbers to indicate parish and...

As the campaign against praedial larceny gains momentum islandwide, members of the farming community in Portland are strengthening their co-operation with the Police to eliminate the problem in the parish. The problem of praedial larceny is particularly rampant in the communities of Mount Pleasant and Hope Bay, with the perpetrators depriving the farmers of their crops. Hilma Wedderburn, the Jamaica...

I welcome you on this 30th day of the year of our Lord 2006. Not to Jamaica, I leave that to others more qualified so to do. I welcome you to the historically unprecedented higher level of regional integration - that is, the CARICOM Single Market - to which the people of the Caribbean Community have now arrived. Almost 17...

When you my colleagues conferred on Jamaica the singular privilege of hosting this ceremony, I had no hesitation in selecting as our venue the Mona Campus. There could be no more fitting location for this historic occasion, since this is indeed Caribbean soil. For nearly six decades now, the University of the West Indies has served as the fountainhead for...

The historic Holland Bamboo Avenue in St. Elizabeth is being given a face-lift, by the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), Ministry of Agriculture and the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA). Hurricane Ivan, which lashed the island in 2004, seriously damaged the bamboo trees, as did a number of illicit bush fires, resulting in a marked decline of the plants....

The St. Elizabeth Homecoming Foundation (SEHF) will be constructing a multi-skills youth training centre in Santa Cruz, and the government has committed to lease the organization some 16 hectares (40 acres) of land for the project. Member of Parliament for North Eastern St. Elizabeth and Agriculture Minister, Roger Clarke and executive members of the SEHF recently toured the site, which...