February 4, 2022
The Massy Group, the Trinidadian Conglomerate, listed on the Jamaican Stock Exchange in search of greater return in the Jamaican market. This hardly went noticed, but to us it was significant because it shows that not only Caribbean companies have the strength to list in other jurisdictions, but to have the confidence to list in their neighbouring country’s markets.
Massy is well known in the Southern Caribbean as a mega company that has a lot of business interests. They also help a lot of ancillary businesses by just being on the scene because when they move a lot of smaller service businesses make significantly more when Massy comes a callin’. We are all in this together.
The move to the JSE has been working fairly well thus far from all accounts. We wish them well.
But does this move mean that the Caribbean Single Market and Economy would be able to have a more meaningful position in the minds of the rest of the Caribbean in an effort to show that we can come together to make a few dollars and help out one another in the process? We hope it does because the data we have seen just recently from the United Nations has shown us that within the Latin American region, countries that traded with one another were better off during the COVID-19 pandemic than those that were waiting on the US or the EU to save them.
We already share banking through FirstCaribbean, we already share sports through CARIFTA and other sporting events, we now have big enough companies to cross list and do business with other Caribbean countries across borders. We need to continue to develop that because only we can save we!