Permanent Secretary, Reginald Budhan, urges small business mergers

KINGSTON — Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Reginald Budhan, has suggested the merging of some small businesses, to improve their competitiveness and efficiency.

He said that this level of co-operation would greatly assist small business owners, who may be finding it difficult to survive on their own. 

“Maybe if we start co-operating and, rather than having a proliferation of more small uneconomic businesses, we could have businesses finding common grounds to merge; even if you don’t want to give up your autonomy, (you could) share accounting services,” he posited.

Mr. Budhan was speaking recently at a Business Mingle, organised by the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ), at the Courtleigh Hotel and Suites, New Kingston.

He said the strategy is used in Trinidad and Tobago, where small businesses team up to share ideas and form clusters and become stronger, more competitive and more resilient.

Mr. Budhan said that, if this strategy is adopted in Jamaica, small businesses could save money as, after amalgamating, they would share services and reduce staff. He said this strategy would also enable the standardisation of product service and quality, across the small business sector.

“Start to co-operate and synergise and, by so doing, if we can get a little more economies of scale,…we’ll improve our efficiency and our competitiveness, because we are in a global marketplace,” he concluded.

Minister of State Minister in the Ministry, Hon Michael Stern, pledged Government’s full support of the small business sector, noting that the Ministry would continue to partner with the SBAJ to strengthen and develop the sector.

The Business Mingle, organised as an informal forum where business persons could meet and exchange ideas, was held under the theme, ‘Knitting Business Opportunities’.

By ALECIA SMITH, JIS Reporter