作者： admin

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a bold show of confidence for Jamaica’s automotive industry despite recent economic headwinds from Hurricane Melissa, Stewart’s Automotive Group has inaugurated a new $7 million flagship showroom for Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor (GWM) along Kingston’s South Camp Road.

Named the Diana Stewart Building in an official dedication, the 9,000-square-foot facility opened its doors to operations on June 3. Designed as GWM’s core retail hub across Jamaica, the modern space is outfitted to display up to eight vehicles at a time, headlined by the brand’s newly launched premium off-road SUV lineup: the Tank 400 and Tank 700. The grand opening ceremony drew more than 500 invited guests, where both Tank models were formally unveiled to the Jamaican public as GWM positions itself to capture a larger share of the country’s fast-growing premium SUV segment. As a unique community touch, the showroom also hosts a permanent site-specific art installation created by students from local Genesis Academy, which draws creative inspiration from GWM’s popular Tank vehicle line.

Jacqueline Stewart-Lechler, managing director of Stewart’s Automotive Group, framed the seven-figure investment as far more than a simple expansion of physical infrastructure. “Tonight marks far more than the opening of a new space, it represents confidence in our market, belief in our people, and a clear vision of the road ahead of Jamaica’s automotive industry,” she stated at the ceremony. Beyond boosting the local automotive retail landscape, the new facility is already projected to deliver tangible economic benefits for the country. It currently employs approximately 40 local workers, with built-in capacity to add more roles as customer demand rises. Stewart-Lechler projected that the operation will contribute a minimum of $400 million in combined tax and General Consumption Tax revenues to the Jamaican government by 2027.

Aubyn Hill, Jamaica’s Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, echoed Stewart-Lechler’s optimism, noting that the partnership between the local automotive group and global brand GWM represents a critical endorsement of Jamaica’s standing as an attractive destination for international investment. “When a global brand like Great Wall Motor, one of China’s leading privately owned automotive manufacturers operating in more than 170 countries and regions, chooses to establish a permanent purpose-built presence in Jamaica, it is a clear vote of confidence in Jamaica’s economy,” Hill said.

The Kingston showroom launch aligns with GWM’s broader strategic push to expand its footprint across the Caribbean region. Hankin Zhao, general manager of GWM International, shared that the company has surpassed 1,500 vehicle sales in Jamaica since it first entered the market in 2021. Beyond local growth, the Jamaican operation has served as a strategic regional hub for the brand, enabling GWM to extend its reach into 13 additional Caribbean markets including Barbados and the Cayman Islands. Zhao emphasized GWM’s long-term approach to market expansion, prioritizing product reliability over rapid short-term growth: “At GWM, quality is our first thing. We are providing a reliable and safe product rather than a faster sale.”

The expansion comes as the local automotive sector navigates post-hurricane recovery, with industry stakeholders framing the new investment as a key milestone in strengthening Jamaica’s economic resilience and positioning the country as a leading automotive market in the Caribbean.

In a strategic move to accommodate booming growth in Trelawny’s tourism and commercial sectors, Jamaica’s National Commercial Bank Limited (NCB) has announced it will move its Falmouth branch to a new home at Champion Plaza starting July 6. The relocation is designed to address longstanding challenges at the current site, and deliver better accessibility, expanded parking, and more efficient customer service to the bank’s expanding local client base.

Per NCB’s official announcement, the new branch will operate out of Shop B2 at Champion Plaza, located at 63A Market Street. The new site sits roughly 10 minutes away from the branch’s current location, which has served the Falmouth community for decades. Both the town of Falmouth and NCB’s local customer base have grown far beyond the capacity of the existing facility, making a move unavoidable to keep up with rising demand.

“As our customers’ needs continue to evolve, so too must the spaces in which we serve them,” noted Andrew Walters, service quality manager for NCB’s Falmouth branch. “The move to Champion Plaza allows us to provide a more accessible, comfortable and secure environment, with the amenities and layout needed to support faster, more efficient service.”

A key constraint that pushed the relocation is the current branch’s status as part of a designated heritage site. Falmouth is widely recognized as one of the best-preserved Georgian towns in the Western Hemisphere, a historical distinction NCB says it values deeply. However, heritage site restrictions block the extensive renovations needed to modernize the space and improve customer movement through the branch. While preserving the town’s historical character is a priority, upgrading the facility to meet modern customer needs was not feasible at the existing location, making relocation the most practical solution.

The new Champion Plaza location will solve many of the pain points long associated with the current branch, including limited parking, outdated infrastructure, and accessibility barriers. NCB notes the new site will feature upgraded security systems, modernized building infrastructure, more convenient entry and exit points for customers with mobility needs, and expanded parking that eliminates the common congestion issues at the current site.

This relocation and corresponding investment underscores NCB’s commitment to supporting Trelawny’s rapid emergence as a key hub for tourism, local commerce, and new investment across Jamaica. As the region continues to draw more visitors and business activity, demand for robust, accessible financial services has grown sharply, and the bank is adapting its physical footprint to match that demand.

Currently, NCB runs a network of 27 full-service branches and more than 300 automated banking machines spread across Jamaica. The company says it remains focused on investing in both its physical brick-and-mortar locations and its digital banking infrastructure, ensuring it can meet the shifting needs of customers across the island, who increasingly want a mix of in-person and digital financial services.

During a launch event hosted this Thursday in Manhattan, New York, Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who also chairs the Tourism Supply-Side Ministerial Committee, called for a foundational overhaul of the way Caribbean nations approach the growth and measurement of their travel and tourism sectors.

Opening the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)’s new Supply-Side Initiative under the overarching theme “Reimagining Caribbean Tourism”, Bartlett made the case that the region has long relied on outdated metrics to gauge tourism success, such as annual visitor arrival numbers and hotel occupancy rates. Moving forward, he argued, the sector must center its growth strategy on three core priorities: boosting local production across all Caribbean economies, integrating and strengthening regional value chains, and keeping more tourism-generated wealth within local and regional communities instead of leaking it to outside suppliers.

“What we must now prioritise is the extent to which tourism stimulates production, strengthens regional value chains, and retains wealth within our economies,” Bartlett stated during his address. “We are building a practical architecture for regional economic integration — one that connects what we produce, how we move it, and how it is consumed within the tourism economy.”

The transformative initiative has secured core backing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which is providing both financial and technical support to advance its core goals. First, the IDB will fund a targeted, demand-driven analysis of all goods and services that the regional tourism sector regularly sources. This analysis will map purchasing trends across every major Caribbean tourism destination, and quantify how much of this existing demand can be met by local and regional producers, rather than importing from outside the bloc.

Second, the IDB will support the design of a unified regional logistics hub framework, with Jamaica selected as the pilot site for the project. This logistics development will build on the IDB’s existing investment in Jamaica’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) program, most notably the large-scale Caymanas SEZ. The new framework will create a clear, direct link between the country’s industrial policy, cross-border trade facilitation efforts, and the growing demand for goods and services from the tourism sector. The first phase of the full initiative is scheduled for completion by February 2027.

Bartlett emphasized that the Supply-Side Initiative is a intentional, coordinated push to integrate multiple key economic sectors — including agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, transportation, creative industries and digital technology — directly to tourism demand. The end goal, he explained, is to transition the Caribbean to a new, self-sustaining tourism model where local and regional producers supply the majority of goods for regional hotels, and regional creative professionals build authentic, one-of-a-kind experiences for visitors.

“If we execute this with discipline and unity of purpose, we will not only strengthen tourism — we will strengthen the economic architecture of the Caribbean itself,” Bartlett said in closing.

The initiative unites a wide coalition of stakeholders to deliver on its goals, including Caribbean national governments, the CTO, the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, and global and regional development partners. All parties are aligned on the shared objective of transforming tourism from a volatile, export-led sector into a consistent, sustained engine that drives inclusive regional economic growth and development.

Two Jamaican service providers, Showfa Express Limited and Paymaster Jamaica, have joined forces to roll out a new fixed-price parcel delivery initiative, designed to deliver more dependable and budget-friendly shipping options for domestic customers across the island.

The new offering, branded Showfa One, made its official debut Thursday at Paymaster’s corporate headquarters located on Molynes Road in St Andrew. Under the terms of the new service, customers can send and receive documents and small goods that fit into a standard-sized shipping envelope for a fixed flat fee of JMD $690, with drop-off and pick-up available at four carefully selected Paymaster locations to start: the Molynes Road headquarters, the Burke Road branch in Spanish Town, and outlets in Mandeville and May Pen.

Jamie Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Mandeville-based Showfa Express, explained that the collaborative service is built to deliver maximum value for Jamaican shippers. “For many people, arranging reliable transport to send or pick up parcels is either out of reach or carries prohibitive costs and time commitments,” Hall said. “Paymaster has built its reputation on seamless, accessible money movement, while Showfa specializes in efficient goods delivery. This partnership brings our two strengths together to create a far more efficient option for people across Jamaica.”

Founded only in 2023, Showfa Express already operates across five Jamaican parishes: Manchester, St Elizabeth, Clarendon, St Catherine, and Kingston and St Andrew’s Corporate Area. According to Hall, the firm has aggressive expansion plans: it will roll out Showfa One to St Ann and St James in the coming months, with a target of full islandwide coverage by the end of the calendar year.

Athinia Campbell, acting general manager of Paymaster, noted that the partnership aligns perfectly with the company’s core mission of expanding accessible, convenient services for its customer base. “Moving documents and small goods between locations is a widespread unmet need for our clients,” Campbell explained. “This new service adds another key offering to our portfolio, allowing customers to handle all their tasks in a single stop at Paymaster. It also gives shippers access to more drop-off and pick-up points, plus extended operating hours that work far better for most people’s schedules.”

Angeline Barrett-Stewart, Paymaster’s head of sales, emphasized that the flat-rate model will deliver particular benefits for small and micro entrepreneurs across Jamaica. “As Jamaica’s economy evolves, demand for affordable, reliable courier services has grown dramatically,” Barrett-Stewart said. “People need to connect with family members across the country, and small business owners need to get products to their customers. This service fills that gap, offering an easier, more convenient, and lower-cost way to get these tasks done.”

Hall added that early testing of the service through a pilot program has already drawn overwhelmingly positive feedback from the company’s long-standing clients. “Small business owners are particularly excited about the predictability of the flat rate,” he said. “Unexpectedly high distance-based delivery fees can often be the factor that kills a sale. With a fixed, low $690 rate, that variable is removed, giving small businesses more room to grow instead of staying stuck at their current size.”