Communications giant Cable and Wireless Jamaica has been hit by an upsurge in cable theft that has cost the company approximately $11 million in two months and over $40 million last year.

"The last fiscal year, we had to replace over $41 million worth of cable and since April we have lost about another $11 million, Errol Miller, vice president corporate affairs, told the Business Observer.
Miller said that the theft of cables has been disrupting telephone services in sections of the Corporate Area, St Ann, St Mary, Portland, Manchester and St Catherine.

However, over the last two months, there has been a concentration of cable theft in St Ann, the company said.
"We understand and know there is a problem and we are working assiduously with the affected parties to deal with the situation," Karl Angell, director of communications for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, told the Business Observer.
According to Miller, the problem of cable theft is not new but it has now grown to intolerable proportions.

"Cable theft has been with us for a very long time, but over the past year it has increased significantly," he said, adding that figures for previous years were not readily available.
For many years the telephone company has had problems with the pilferage of copper wire cables which are allegedly used in the underworld for the manufacture of bullets.

But recently the demand for copper and other metals has increased internationally with Jamaica enjoying a booming export market in scrap metals worth approximately US$90 million (J$6 billion) last year.
The fantastic spike in the scrap metal market has resulted in a whopping 800 per cent increase in exports over a 12-month period to 2006.

According to Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) figures, in 2005 the export of scrap metal stood at a modest US$13.3 million. But by 2006 exports of scrap metal had shot up to US$99.58 million.

A few weeks ago, the JEA announced that non-traditional exports for the first quarter of 2007 totalled US$115.8 million, while traditional exports stood at US$224.8 million.
According to JEA president Marjory Kennedy, fresh agriculture produce, chemicals and scrap metals accounted for the bulk of the non-traditional exports.

Dealers purchasing copper wire for export have quoted a price of $50 per pound for the metal, and they buy from anyone offering it for sale.
Aluminum fetches $27 per pound and iron $6,000 per tonne, according to one Kingston metal dealer.

Increasingly, trucks laden with scrap metal of all descriptions - from old car parts, to water pipes - can be seen traversing Jamaica's roads. And recently reports have been made regarding the removal of large sections of railway lines in Manchester belonging to the Jamaica Railway Corporation, ostensibly for the export market.

The scraps, for the most part, are shipped to the Far East, especially China, where industrial and economic development is driving a mounting demand for metal as raw material in production.

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