THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on September 19 in the years identified:

1949:a Points emerging from

Gleaner survey of opinion of the likely effects that devaluation of the English pound will have on the local economy are (1) that Jamaica will have to pay 30 per cent more for bread, rice, salt and canned fish (assuming the Canadian dollar is quoted at the same rate as the American dollar); (2) that the tourist trade will benefit; (3) that Jamaica will have to buy more from soft currency areas and restrict her imports from hard currency areas to the minimum. Informed circles say that as each component part of the sterling area has a direct interest in the stability and expansion of trade within the area. It must be obvious that were it necessary for Britain an even more austere standard of living, the effect would be widely felt within the sterling area and might have a serious effect on local economy, particularly in view of the permanent and growing importance of Jamaica to the United Kingdom market for basic exports.

1968:Jamaica’s export drive which is being stimulated by the island’s membership in the Caribbean Free Trade Association is being assisted by an international agency which specialises in export trade. This is the International Trade Centre in Geneva, which is jointly sponsored by the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development. Task of the centre is to advise members of the United Nations, but more especially the developing countries, on how to organise their export trade, in terms of markets and the development of sales techniques. H. I. Jacobson, director of the centre, has been in Jamaica for a week now at the invitation of the ministry of Trade and Industry to advise the local drive. Jacobson has held meetings with the Ministry, with the National Export Council, and with individual members of the business community. He is the luncheon guest of the Jamaica Exporters Association at the Terra Nova Hotel.