China to Promote Investment in Jamaica

Jamaica is one of China's important trade partners in theEnglish-speaking Caribbean， in recent years bilateral tradehas developed rapidly， although last year， ~ecause of theeconomic crisis， bilateral trade has been greatly affected.According to China Customs statistics， bilateraI trade in 2008amounted to US$291 million. Influenced by the financial crisis，bilateral trade between China and Jamaica in 2009 was US$2.19million， down 25.7% when compared with the same period in2008. However， with the continuous development of the twoeconomies， bilateral economic and trade has great potential. Dur-ing the state visit of the Jamaican Prime Minister to China， onFebruary 3， the China Council for the Promotion of InternationalTrade held the \"Investment Seminar\" for promoting bilateral in-vestment ，opportunities. The delegationincluded Prime Minister Bruce Golding，along with his wife， Mrs. Lorna Gold-ing; Dr.Kenneth Baugh， Deputy PrimeMinister of Foreign Affairs and ForeignTrade; Karl Samuda， Minister of theIndustry， Investment and Commerce;Michael Henry， Minister of the Trans-portation Department; H.E. CourtenayRattray， and other guests. Jamaican offi-cials presented the current economic sit-uation in Jamaica and future prospects，as well as important investment projectsin tourism， energy， mineral resources，ICT， logistics and housing areas. ManyChinese companies such as Putian， Chi-na Machine Tool Group， Datang Group，Huawei， and ZTE， also attended thisconference.