JBDC POISED TO PROVIDE SMALL BUSINESS LOAN SUPPORT - PM GOLDING

June 30, 2010

JBDC POISED TO PROVIDE SMALL BUSINESS LOAN SUPPORT - PM GOLDING

Prime Minister Bruce Golding supported a motion by the Minister of Finance and the Public Service, The Honourable Audley Shaw, for a Government Guarantee of S150 million from the Development Bank of Jamaica Limited (DBJ) to the Jamaica Business Development Centre (JBDC) for on-lending to the micro and small enterprise sector.

Mr Golding was contributing to the debate in Parliament on June 29 when he said of the JBDC:

Insert clip: JBDC Strong Capable Persons

"I think that they have a very strong, powerful, capable set of persons there who have created a window of opportunity for small and micro enterprises and what we want to do is to support them. Now it may be that we are taking them into an area that they had never gone. Before they were simply evaluating and training and making recommendations, now we are saying to them, no, live with your entrepreneurs, stay with them and when you feel that they have graduated to a point when they can take off on their own, then you turn your attention to others."

Mr Golding said that funds lent by the DBJ should be used to support industry and not for financial trading.

Insert clip: DBJ Money not for trading

"A requirement is that it ought not to be traded, that it ought to be used to be for the creation of some good and service it is not the matter of buying and selling."

Prime Minister Bruce Golding in Parliament on June 29 supporting the Government Guarantee of $150 million from the Development Bank of Jamaica to the Jamaica Business Development Centre for on-lending to small, medium and micro businesses.