Commend the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for organising this very timely Conference and Exhibition. JamCon2000 is designed to strengthen the fraternity of electro and computer technology engineers worldwide and showcase cutting edge technological devices.

This event is taking place even as we embark on a major national programme aimed at enhancing production, productivity and the generation of employment.

As you may be aware we live in a new and exiting age. It is an age of challenge and opportunity. It is an age which dictates that we respond appropriately to emerging opportunities or be relegated to underdevelopment and poverty.

Today globalisation defines everything we do. The challenge of globalisation has to be met by appropriate responses. We cannot hold back the onrushing tide of globalisation but we can mitigate its potentially disruptive effects and position ourselves to transform challenges into opportunities.

During this past decade, there has been a dramatic shift away from primary production and raw materials export to knowledge-based, technology-driven production. Countries, such as ours can no longer rely solely on our natural resources. We must now rely on our human and technological capital.

Technology has rendered many traditional industries based on raw materials irrelevant. The developed world is rapidly finding substitutes for our raw materials. Protected trade is a thing of the past. Our traditional exports like our bananas and sugar are threatened. We must develop strategies to deal with the fallout from these sectors with utmost urgency.

The building of a strong, more innovative economy driven by the information revolution is an imperative we dare not ignore. This revolution internationally, is driving the most dramatic and fundamental economic transformation of our time.

Information Technology is not just an industry that creates new opportunities. Globalization dictates that in order to be competitive and achieve greater efficiencies all sectors, including the traditional sectors, we must make use of new and emerging technologies.

Importantly also must seek to nurture new industries which draw on our unique strengths, aptitudes and resources - industries which promote strong inter-sectoral linkages and high value added and which can maximise employment as well as the transfer of technology.

Particularly for developing countries such as ours, the introduction of new and improved communications technology gives the opportunity to access the latest and more powerful communications infrastructure and benefit from relative cost advantages compared to those countries which must now update their networks.

The information technology revolution is creating a large range of new industries. These industries are among the fastest growing in the world and include opportunities for creating new jobs in the hardware and software industries.

It is the recognition of the potential of information technology as the catalyst for growth as well as an industry teeming with opportunity that has now motivated the government to liberalise our telecommunications sector and target the industry as the critical sector of growth and sustained development.

As you may be aware, for this financial year we allocated $2 billion to fund the first phase of a development project - the Information Technology Employment Creation and Development Project. This project is for three years and will cost some $5 billion (to be partially funded by the proceeds of the recent sale of two cellular licenses).

We have now developed a National Strategic Plan for the Information Technology sector and an Action Plan for its Implementation. The thrust of the Programme is to create 40,000 jobs in information and communication technology over three years and the mobilisation of resources to support critical areas such as human resources development and infrastructure.

The broad objectives of our IT development programme are to: * Create employment
* Contribute to income distribution, equity and hope, especially among the young who may have an aptitude for acquiring new technical skills within a relatively short time
* Re-orient the nation to become knowledge based
* Facilitate the development of local IT firms

A critical success factor for the IT Project is the development of a strategy that will result in the provision of adequate office/factory space by both private and public sectors. It is envisaged that initially the public sector will take a lead role. It is anticipated however that the private sector will find the development of industrial parks attractive and play a major role in the near future.

To facilitate the increased role of the private sector, Government will make the appropriate decisions to accommodate this role in the development of industrial parks. This includes the divestment of our free zones to increase efficiency and mobilise greater private sector participation in the industrial development of the country. We are now finalising these plans for the divestment of the free zones and the development of industrial parks.

We are also of the view that quick start facilities can be quite successful. A quick start facility is a fully established facility of between 100-200 square metres, equipped with computers and relevant accessories. It affords an investor the opportunity to test a project idea in the quick start facility before deciding to make a longer-term investment decision. We recognise that projects in the information and telecommunications sector are generally regarded by the development banks as risky, consequently, accessing loans can be difficult, as the banks tend to adopt a conservative approach to their lending.

Under the Project, a Venture Capital Loan Fund of J$1 billion will be established. A development bank will manage this Fund. The Ministry has provided the criteria to the agency for the appraisal of IT projects and has established a technical team which will provide technical support to the agency in the appraisal of projects submitted for funding.

A range of public education institutions and private sector firms will carry out the Training. Our National Training Agency will have responsibility for the implementation of the training component of the Project.

A fundamental principle however, is that training is being demand-driven. The Project provides a training grant incentive to the firms based on number of persons to be employed. This training grant applies to short-term training such as call centre and data conversion-type training. The Project provides resources that permit our training agency to increase its training capacity for Information Technology from the current 10,000 to 20,000 trainees.

In the case of longer-term training for programmers/software services, we are providing grants to the training institutions for the establishmen t of 60 Information Technology training laboratories in our Community Colleges. This element of the project will gather momentum during this coming academic year. Post-graduate training will also be facilitated through international support.

The promotion and marketing of Jamaica is critical if the country is to be able to attract the level of business anticipated. We recognise that Jamaica is competing with several other countries for investment in this sector. Mobilising large amount of foreign direct investment in a short time has been very challenging. [Highlight some positive responses emerging from recent promotional missions abroad]

The scope of the project is comprehensive and includes the establishment of voice and data access points at each of 150 post offices across the island. The Project will develop a public sector information technology infrastructure for promoting efficiency and effectiveness in government-to- government transactions and government-to-customer transactions.

Other critical elements of the project include: -
* The creation of office space infrastructure for information and communication technology firms;
* Establishment of quick start facilities;
* Establish a venture capital loan fund for information and communication projects;
* Human resources development to provide a cadre of trained personnel - short term training; grants to upgrade labs in community colleges; postgraduate training;
* Marketing and promotion to establish Jamaica as a preferred location for high quality information technology services;
* Installation of telecommunications infrastructure;
* Establish voice and data access points throughout the island's post offices, thereby bringing technology to the average citizen.

Importantly also, in tandem with our focus on the information technology sector, we are now laying the foundation for the modernization and commercialization of our Post and Telecommunications system. We have put in place a new entity - the Postal Corporation of Jamaica to spearhead this process.

Already, we have advertised for joint venture partners for the implementation of certain island-wide commercial services. These include:
* Money transfer
* Banking and financial services
* A settlement services enterprise (payments related to government, utilities and private commercial services)
* Teleboutique services (e-mail, e-commerce,
desktop publishing and Internet services).

The response from local and overseas business interests to these investments has been very encouraging. The economic adjustment programme that we have pursued over the past few years has begun to bear fruit. Inflation is down to single digits, the foreign exchange rate has been stabilised, the country's net international reserves is at record levels, interest rates are trending downwards and in recent months there has been a surge of new investments.

Our mission is to grow the Jamaican economy, generate new employment and provide our people with the kind of motivation and support necessary for their full participation in the development process. Finally, let me once again commend the IEEE for staging this important get-together. The level of support and participation that has been generated indicates that the event will be a tremendous success.

I wish also to invite the IEEE to target graduates and trainees of the Caribbean Institute of Technology as a source for expanding its membership. Your efforts will help to ensure that our vision of Jamaica as a truly knowledge based society becomes reality.