Jamaica Business Gateway: Simplifying the business experience

The Jamaica Business Gateway (JBG) is said to be transforming the process of doing business in the country.

Launched in 2023 by Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), the digital platform has streamlined interactions between businesses and government entities, reducing the time and cost for the acquisition of permits, licences and other business-related needs.

Lengthy turnaround times coupled with multiple processes and redundancies, have been significantly reduced, creating a more favourable environment for investment.

The JBG serves as the central point through which all investments are routed and accessed by the key government entities  involved in the investment facilitation process.

The platform provides for a personalised preliminary review by JAMPRO, allowing the agency to guide the investment process from beginning through to the end.

This helps to eliminate costly delays and hiccups during implementation by creating awareness and access to information early in the process.

Project Manager for JBG, Janene Chin, describes the platform as a "business-to-government central application and processing platform”.

This means that businesses can submit applications online rather than relying on traditional, often cumbersome, manual processes.

"It's moving these processes to be digital," she noted.

With the online platform, information is readily available 24/7. Investors no longer have to wait for office hours to begin their application process, significantly enhancing the overall business experience.

One of the standout features of the JBG is its ability to consolidate multiple government interactions into a single dashboard.  This allows users to manage all their applications in one place.

"You can have everything done through the platform," Chin said, noting that this not only simplifies the process but also results in faster approval times.

Manager of Corporate Initiatives at JAMPRO, Cheronne Allen said  "no entity is able to see what the other is doing", maintaining confidentiality and security throughout the application process.

“Even during the application process for entities individually, there are also built-in levels of permission. So, if typically, in a manual system, an application moved to a department, and another department was not to see it, the very same consideration was configured in how we have built it digitally.

“So, we have layers of protection both on the entity level and on a platform level to ensure that no one has the ability to see what's happening with other applications. Certainly, in terms of JAMPRO managing the initiative, there are also limitations in terms of what JAMPRO can see, because JAMPRO only operates as the manager of the platform,” she  explained.