President Bharrat Jagdeo is to approach international financial institutions with a view to establishing a financing window for the region’s private sector to get them into investing in agriculture.
This is according to Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud, who spoke yesterday at the closing press conference of the Regional Agriculture Investment Forum held over the past two days at the Guyana International Conference Centre.
Further, as a result of the two days of talks, it was decided that a monitoring and reporting mechanism to be called the Caricom Investment Enabling Mechanism should be established to follow up on the talks and to measure progress on investment matchmaking.
Persaud said the discussions were held in the spirit of collaboration but the results would take some time to germinate. He said that there was a clear understanding of the investment opportunities and that the forum provided the avenue for various players to meet on various proposals.
James Moss-Solomon, head of the task force responsible for the putting the forum together, said that he was pleased with the turnout, which was way beyond expectation. He said there were over 150 participants.
Moss-Solomon stressed that the responsibility of fostering investment was not only that of governments but also of the private sector. “Agriculture holds so much potential we cannot ask governments alone to bear that burden,” he said.
“We have benefited from the format of the meeting… people with projects know who they should be talking to.
There were 25 projects presented and this is a major step forward for agriculture.”
During one of the earlier sessions, a number of commercial banks and international financial institutions presented on their requirements for funding various projects.
According to an official of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the institution is working on a number of projects related to the renewable energy sector. He said the bank believes there are good opportunities in Guyana for new projects in the bio-energy sector. He said that these would be in the private sector and said that several of these projects could see the bank either financing or issuing a guarantee.
The representative said the bank has budgeted US$300 million for the financing of smaller projects on sustainable and renewable energy and for climate change mitigation.
The bank is also said to have a programme referred to as Opportunities for the Majority, which aims to help people at the base of the economic pyramid, earning less than US$3,000 per year.
The official said that although the bank was working on a number of small projects, whatever was done by the IDB must be in accordance with the plans the government has for the sector.
At a later presentation, Christiaan Gischler, the IDB’s sustainable development specialist, said that one of the threats to the development of renewable energy is for the region to continue with a “business as usual” approach. He said the IDB would put up to US$50,000 as a grant with the investor matching it with a similar amount for a project feasibility study. He said that on completion of the study, the project is more likely to find favour with a financial institution for financing.
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) yesterday indicated its willingness to help the agriculture sector and said that in addition to financial viability, social issues were also considered and the ability or potential of the project to create employment.
The CDB will be hosting a high-level food meeting at its headquarters in Barbados and the heads of government will take the decisions made at this forum to their respective capitals.
Presentations were also made by Republic Bank Guyana Limited and Scotia Bank and they explained some of the difficulties faced when considering proposals for lending in the agriculture sector.
