But one of the hosts, Patrick Casserly, whose company, e-Services Group, is the island's largest employer of labour in information technology industry, warned that the country's potential to attract these investors and create thousands of jobs, would in part depend on the willingness of local entrepreneurs to invest in the industry.

"The industry can become six times its present size," Casserly told journalists and investors at a press conference at his company's headquarters in Montego Bay on Friday.  The press conference followed the tour of the facility by the 17- member group of overseas investors - some of whom apparently expressed interest in setting up call centre operations in Jamaica.

Casserly, the managing director and capital partner in e-Services, said more local entrepreneurs had to invest in the sector for the potential to be realised.  He cited Kingston, where e-Services has an operation, as one location where "the surface has not even been scratched".

The prominent Montego Bay businessman whose information technology company employs more that 1,500 persons, was last year named the Business Observer Business Leader for his role in developing e-Services, and the information technology industry.

As examples of areas in which entrepreneurs could invest, he pointed to the construction of buildings to house call centres, and the establishment of call centres.

"The office space certainly doesn't exist, so if we are serious about the industry we need to start building," he declared

The main objective of the tour was to showcase Jamaica's potential to serve as host for call centres, with the quality of labour, work ethic, and similarity of language and culture shared with America as major selling points.

Angel Garcia, director for Caribbean regional sales at Avaya, whose company organised the tour, said the investors were very impressed with what they saw.

"They were very impressed and we are looking for them to establish their own call centres here or outsourcing part of their call centre operations to a company like e-Services," she noted.  "If we can get at least one of these investors to come here and open up a 1,000-seat call centre, or outsource 1,000 of their seats, that's a thousand direct jobs that will be created in Jamaica, and probably another 7,000 jobs in indirect employment."

The investors were drawn from several areas of the US and Central America, most of whom already have call centre operations.  The sectors of their operations included collections, health care and financial services.

Recent market studies estimate that more than 24,000 call centre agent jobs could be generated in the Caribbean and Central America region in 2005, a 15 per cent growth.

Like Garcia, Casserly said that the team of investors appeared to be very serious about doing business in Jamaica.

"The team was interested, the members were a very keen group of people, asking the right questions, which is always a good measure of the seriousness of these visits," said Casserly.

"As you may know we have had people coming through before, but I was really struck by this group in the sense that they wanted to get into details, in terms of the questions (they asked) about labour, the work ethic, environment, availability of resources and so on...."

There are about 8,000 persons in Jamaica employed directly in call centre operations, but officials estimate that the sector has the potential to provide at least 50,000 jobs over the next few years.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050322T190000-0500_77350_OBS_CASSERLY_SEES_POTENTIAL_FOR_THOUSANDS_MORE_IT_JOBS.asp