(Kaieteur News) – Jamaica is looking to Guyana as a model and partner in addressing its housing crisis, Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced Thursday at the opening of the International Building Expo at the Guyana National Stadium, where President Irfaan Ali committed to building more than 300 homes in Jamaica as part of Hurricane Melissa recovery efforts.

Holness arrived in Georgetown facing a pressing housing deficit back home. Jamaica currently lacks approximately 150,000 housing solutions, he told attendees. The government has committed to delivering 70,000 of those directly through state agencies, with the National Housing Trust tasked with building a further 42,000, of which 10,000 have already been completed.

But the pace of delivery, Holness said, is being held back not by money but by structural bottlenecks. “The availability of contractors who can build at scale, the availability of labor and technical skills that can operate with new innovations and new materials, and of course the speed of government itself in giving planning and construction approvals, these have been our challenges,” he said.