JAMPRO
Jamaica’s creative sector has received a major boost through a partnership between global entertainment marketing agency, The SMC Group, and The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA). This arrangement aims to foster the development of Jamaican talent and the island’s Creative Industries.
The venture will begin with an investment into the development of a music production studio to support local song writers, producers, and artistes. SMC also intends to recruit EMCVPA students for apprenticeships and job placements. This ground-breaking initiative will enhance the music and audio production, animation, as well as dance specialisations at the College.
The partnership is the latest positive development in the island’s creative industries which have seen considerable growth in recent years.
In the film industry, more than 4000 film-related jobs have been created in the last three years while approximately 150 foreign productions are facilitated per year. Over 3 billion JMD in film production expenditure was contributed to GDP in the last two years, and approximately 65-70 percent of crews hired on most international film productions in Jamaica are local.
The country also has a growing animation industry with 15 local studios having participated in government-led programmes to increase their profitability and sustainability.
CEO of The SMC Group, Maurice Hamilton, revealed that the collaboration between the group and EMCVPA will add to the progress that has already been made in the creative industries by expanding investment into the areas of talent and content in the music and audio-visual sectors.
“This is the first step of an exciting initiative to establish Jamaica and then the wider Caribbean region as a creative hub that will develop creative and business professionals as well as content ,” the CEO remarked. “And for SMC, it creates a solid, efficient pipeline of creative talent to service our global clients .”
The CEO also disclosed that SMC intends to build a centre of excellence in Jamaica and will be engaging in additional investments and local partnerships.
“We want to ensure that our commitment to Jamaican talent is substantive ,” he insisted. “Through greater education, funding, and through our network within the global marketplace we can provide a platform from which Jamaican talent can flourish internationally .”
The island has seen several ventures over the years led by the private sector, public sector or both, which seek to advance the creative industry. Programmes such as the Business of Sustainability for Studios (BOSS) programme, JAFTA Propella film development programme, and the Film Lab initiative help entrepreneurs grow their animation and film production studios, and increase content development.
In the spirit of these collaborations between industry stakeholders, Diane Edwards, President of Jamaica’s investment and export promotions agency, JAMPRO, welcomed the cooperation between SMC and EMCVPA.
“At JAMPRO, we believe that partnership is essential to building local industries and to creating valuable opportunities for Jamaica’s people, so we are pleased to see this agreement between SMC and Edna Manley College ,” she said.
EMCVPA’s Vice Principal of Administration and Resource Development, Ms. Kerry Ann Henry, shared her enthusiasm for the partnership and explained that its objectives were in keeping with the college’s mission. She stated, “This is a partnership that will not just strengthen our respective organizations, it will be of enormous benefit to the country in fields related to the visual and performing arts .”
About The SMC Group
The SMC Group operates in 17 markets across the globe and has worked on campaigns for brands like The Coca-Cola Company, Net-A-Porter, Unilever, Diageo, Cartier and a host of globally recognizable names. Their projects have also involved celebrities like Jamaican Olympian Usain Bolt, Korean pop band BTS, Colombian superstar Maluma and American celebrities such as Kevin Hart, Jason Derulo and Kanye West.
ABOUT JAMPRO
The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO)’s mission is to drive economic development through growth in investment and export. JAMPRO is an Agency of the Ministry of Industry, Investment, and Commerce.
For more information on JAMPRO, please visit https://dobusinessjamaica.com/ .
Follow us on:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210630005271/en/
Link:
Social Media:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
The Estée Lauder Companies’ Oevel Manufacturing & Fulfillment Campus Celebrates 60 Years of Excellence and Innovation16.10.2025 15:01:00 CEST | Press release
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL), today celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its Manufacturing & Fulfillment Campus in Oevel, Belgium. Since its opening in 1965, the Oevel Campus has developed into a state-of-the-art manufacturing, fulfillment and biotech hub. Today the campus serves as a cornerstone of the company’s global value chain and is one of its largest manufacturing facilities by volume, annually producing over 100 million prestige beauty products, which are then shipped to more than 100 countries. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251016330616/en/ The Estée Lauder Companies celebrates 60th anniversary of its Manufacturing & Fulfillment Campus in Oevel, Belgium “Nearly sixty years ago, my grandparents, Estée and Joseph Lauder, laid the cornerstone of our first facility here in Oevel, establishing what would become a vital part of our global operations,” said William P. Lauder, Chair, Board of
New Roquette Pharmaceutical Innovation Center to Strengthen Latin America as Collaborative Hub16.10.2025 15:00:00 CEST | Press release
The Health & Pharma Solutions facility offers state-of-the-art laboratory and training rooms for customers Roquette, a global leader in plant-based ingredients and pharmaceutical excipients for health, nutrition and bio industrial markets, today, celebrates the grand opening of its dedicated Health & Pharma Solutions Innovation Center in São Paulo, Brazil. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251016102423/en/ Credits to Roquette Located in Barueri, near São Paulo’s city center, the state-of-the-art facility represents a multi-million-dollar investment and reinforces Roquette’s commitment as the pharmaceutical industry’s go-to partner for the development of drug delivery solutions that contribute to life-saving therapies. The center will enable scientific experts to leverage advanced tools, technologies, and expertise to deliver tailored solutions to customers. “Roquette’s new Pharmaceutical Innovation Center in São
Global Study Finds Most SAP Customers Favor Multi-Vendor Composable ERP for Faster Innovation, Including AI16.10.2025 15:00:00 CEST | Press release
Organizations using composable architectures with third-party support achieve above-average performance 83% of the time versus 27% for traditional approaches Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support, managed services and innovation solutions, and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle, SAP and VMware software, today announced research findings around the SAP roadmap. In an in-depth study and interactive interview of 455 IT and business leaders, SAP customers voiced concerns over the push toward subscription-based S/4HANA and shared strategies business leaders are adopting to drive innovation and growth. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251016604661/en/ Global Study Finds Most SAP Customers Favor Multi-Vendor Composable ERP for Faster Innovation, Including AI Data revealed that while nearly all SAP customers surveyed are finding it difficult to
Valorem Reply, Microsoft and ITF Bring Real-time AI Analytics to the Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge16.10.2025 14:03:00 CEST | Press release
Valorem Reply, the Reply Group company specializing in Microsoft technologies and AI-driven, cloud-native solutions, in collaboration with Microsoft and the International Tennis Federation (ITF), has developed Match Insights, an AI-drivenreal-time analytics application. The solution brings real-time artificial intelligence analytics to the Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge, the world’s premier international women’s team tennis competition. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251016627733/en/ Deployed on Microsoft Surface devices, Match Insights combines mobility and reliability, giving teams access to live insights not only courtside but also in the locker room or off-site. As one of the few elite tournaments that permits on-court coaching, the Billie Jean King Cup presents unique demands for instant, precision-driven tactical decisions. In this environment, even the smallest variations in serve response time or
ExaGrid Announces New Features for MSPs in Version 7.4.0 Release16.10.2025 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
Features include “Tracking data per share” and “Ransomware Recovery by share” ExaGrid®, the industry’s only Tiered Backup Storage solution with AI-Powered Retention Time-Lock (RTL) that includes a non-network-facing tier (tiered air gap), Auto Detect & Guard, delayed deletes and immutability for ransomware recovery, today announced that the ExaGrid Version 7.4.0 release, shipping in October 2025, includes new features optimal for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who use ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage to protect their customers’ data. Many organizations use MSPs to outsource either a single IT function, such as Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), or even an entire data center, including all applications, servers, and storage. A number of MSPs already use ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage, and ExaGrid’s new features will help MSPs track their customers’ data usage and separately provide the ability to restore an individual customer’s data in the case of a ra
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom