Creative entrepreneurship — the case for Investment
A new report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) indicates that the global creative economy is showing resilience and growth. The report includes country profiles for 130 economies and highlights opportunities for developing countries to increase their production, exports, and get their share of the creative industries pie.
The biggest success story from the developing nations group is China — still the number one exporter of creative goods in the world, with export growth rates of over 7% for global trade in creative goods. Remarkably, China’s exports grew at double the global average over the 13 year period.
Despite an abundance of data and numerous reports abroad that finesse earnings down to the hour, at home there is still some confusion about what the creative economy actually is.
The creative industries include music, festivals, fashion, culinary arts, architecture, arts and crafts, toys and jewellery, museums and heritage sites, marketing and advertising, new media and publishing, research and development, software, computer gaming, and other core creative work like dance, theatre and visual arts.
Many successful creative entrepreneurs in Jamaica do not identify themselves as “creative entrepreneurs”, they call themselves “business persons”, even though they are clearly working in the creative industries.
This may stem from the bias in our educational system toward herding young people into traditional career paths (doctor, lawyer, engineer, MBA’S) and dissuading them from pursuing creative careers, deeming those areas “hobbies”. However, the world has shifted — and we see that globally, creative talents, thinking and skills are in high demand.
“The creative economy has both commercial and cultural value. Acknowledgement of this dual worth has led governments worldwide to expand and develop their creative economies as part of economic diversification strategies and efforts to stimulate economic growth, prosperity and well-being.” – Mukhisa Kituyi, secretary general of UNCTAD
So why hasn’t Jamaica, often labelled as a “cultural superpower”, tapped into its cultural capital and the creativity of its people to diversify and stimulate growth in its economy?
In fact, Jamaica, a country rife with talent and a powerful brand name to boot, is running a creative goods deficit of US$147 million. In 2014 we exported US$5.98 million in fashion, accessories and publishing — and in the same year we imported design, publishing and audio-visuals for a total value of US$153.14 million. Barbados, by comparison, exported almost four times as much as Jamaica — US$19.2 million in couture, jewelery and handbags - and imported only US$65.79M worth of goods for a resultant deficit of US$46.59M.
The report almost shakes its head in confusion, painstakingly pointing out that “Jamaica has a very rich history of original music and in particular, reggae“. This is not news to most of us, as Jamaica received the UNESCO intangible heritage designation for reggae in 2018, and our capital, Kingston, has been a UNESCO Creative City of Music for four years, But how have we leveraged that?
With obvious competitive advantages — not just in music, but in the wider arts and our culture itself — Jamaica has a real opportunity to treat creativity not as a hobby, but as a sector that can be a catalyst for economic growth.
Just last week I happened upon a film crew filming a video for Jason Derulo, an international pop star, at the new Kingston Creative Water Lane murals, located behind the old Swiss Stores building on Harbour Street. The simple addition of art on the walls made this an enticing location for filming — which generates revenue for the community and country.
Drake, DJ Khaled, Jay-z and Beyonce are all just a few of the internationally known creatives that have come to Jamaica in recent months — not for the sun, sea and sand that we push to the forefront, but for our culture. Sadly, while Jamaica may receive a filming fee or a recording studio rental here and there, the large part of the earnings from these high -rofile visits are generated in home countries of those visitors.
So many of our own successful creatives (in visual art, literature, film) have left Jamaica and are contributing to the growth of another nation’s creative economy. We can change this by investing in our own cultural infrastructure and developing the ecosystem that young creatives need to succeed right here at home, without migrating.
Culture is our innate competitive advantage, and a focus on creative entrepreneurship is imperative for us to able to responsibly monetise our culture. If we can leverage arts and culture in the right way, we will see those resultant economic and social benefits manifesting right here at home.
Andrea Dempster-chung is co-founder and executive director, Kingston Creative — a nonprofit organisation seeking to transform downtown Kingston through art and culture.