JAMAICAN American businessman Denton Douglas is embarking on an ambitious plan to take his boatbuilding business to Jamaica and is prepared to spend US$25 million, initially, to make it a success.

Douglas, who operates Monarch Yachts — a Florida-headquartered company which began operations in China and now operates two plants in Turkey — is pushing to open a yacht-building and repair facility in Jamaica and is confident that within three years it will become profitable while employing scores of Jamaicans.

“I want Jamaica to be a manufacturing hub. Over the years we have been mainly on primary goods; we export bananas, we export ore, but we never make something. We import our cars. We import everything else. I want to move Jamaica from that primary [producer] to a manufacturing hub, and I think we have the know-how. For sure we have the skills, and we have the logistics to do it,” Douglas told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday.