Foreign Direct Investment and Jamaica

• Author: Lloyd G. Waller/Densil A. Williams/Omar E. Hawthorne/Donavon Johnson
• Profession: Head of the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, Mona. His research focuses on research methodologies; governance and public policy; and digital transformation/Professor of International Business at the UWI/Lecturer of International Relations and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Leadership and Governance at ...
• Pages: 10-24

Introduction

The Jamaican economy has been undergoing rapid liberalization since

the 1980s, and over the years, the government has adopted signicant

measures such as reducing barriers to trade (barriers such as quota

restrictions, foreign exchange controls, prohibitive tariffs, and import

result, the Jamaican economy offers a very favourable climate for foreign

investment as conrmed by the 2015 Forbes Best Countries for Business

The report cited the country’s tremendous improvement in adopting best

practices to modernize business regulations. The 2017 Doing Business

report also identied Jamaica as the best country to do business within

to rank in the top 100 countries; scoring 86 and 96 respectively. In this chapter,

we will demonstrate Jamaica’s experiences with FDI to contextualize the

value of FDI to the country. This will be done by showcasing the historical

evolution of FDI in Jamaica and highlighting current trends, after which we

will look at the main determinants.

History of Foreign Direct Investment In Jamaica

The 1970s

Foreign investment in Jamaica’s economy began long before the 1970s

with some authors dating the advent of foreign direct investment (FDI) back

to the days of slavery (Beckles 2013). The 1970s, however, was an important

time of foreign investment in Jamaica as it represented a vicious cycle of

2. Foreign Direct Investment and

Jamaica