Self Reliance

We continue to look at the area of self reliance which is not a very popular topic today but in reality is a much needed one.  Many persons think of self reliance as the denial of anything good or pleasurable with severe restrictions on what one can buy.   However, I think of it as how to make the best use of the scarce resources that one has.  This requires that the government has to make the best decision for the country regardless of how popular that decision may be.

One area that is causing problems in Jamaica is the cost of dealing with garbage.  Plastic bottles and bags litter our gullies and drains and hundreds of millions are being spent cleaning up the mess.  The government needs to consider the banning of plastic bags other than biodegradable ones and to encourage consumers to carry their own bags when shopping.  Another long outstanding issue is the matter of a deposit on plastic bottles.  I guarantee that if a $5 deposit was put on plastic bottles that very few would be found in a gully or in a drain.

There needs to be a better policy on car import duties, the cars with the best fuel economy should get the lowest duties and those with the worst rates the highest duties.  Electric and hydrogen vehicles could be exempted from import duties.  The same principles should be applied to electrical appliances with items like air conditioners having the highest rates.  Solar heaters, wind generators, etc can have zero rates of import duties. There needs to be a drive to recycle and repair more items saving on foreign exchange and generating more jobs at the same time.

Another area is to generate more agricultural production locally so as to reduce the import content that the major hotels consume.  Too much of our tourism product is dependent on foreign inputs.
We may not be able to eliminate foreign imports but we can certainly reduce our dependence on them. No, self reliance is not a bad idea it is most necessary for small economies like ours which are foreseeing very difficult days ahead.

Feedback question: In what ways can we reduce our dependence on foreign imports?