President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) Chandradat Chintamani says that his Chamber is seeking to have the issue of tax reform adequately addressed and hinted that this may soon become a reality.
He said that there have been discussions between the Chamber and the Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh and added that there was a “paper in the pipelines” which is currently being revised.
Chintamani was at the time speaking at the opening session of the (GCCI)’s Annual General Meeting which was held at Duke Lodge in Kingston. According to him, during the past year the GCCI has undertaken steps to try to address some of the concerns of the business community. He stated that this included a five-year strategic plan which has outlined some value-added services that the Chamber should be providing.
The President of the Chamber said that deliberations were recently held with the Surinamese Ambassador to Guyana to discuss cross-border trade especially as it related to that of illegal items. He said that similar discussions with other countries will take place shortly.
Chintamani, meanwhile, called for the business community to exercise price discipline so as to allow consumers to benefit. He made this appeal in the context that the income tax threshold had not been raised at the last budget neither had an increase in salaries for public servants.
He said that the business community needed to try to meet the concerns of the consumers.
Also plans are on stream for the Chamber to have an up-to-date website through which members of the group can have easy assess to necessary information.
Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manniram Prashad delivered the feature address at the opening ceremony and also officially declared the event opened.
Prashad, in his presentation, emphasised government’s commitment to the business sector. He said that the government had recently undertaken the task of improving the Deeds Registry as well as engaged in reforms to enhance trade transactions.
Meanwhile, Prashad, who is a former President of the group, emphasised that in spite of the global financial crisis the experiences of businesses were not as bad as people were making them to be. He stated that people needed to stop “parroting” for the things they were seeing occurring in the USA. He rebuffed calls coming from some quarters for a stimulus package and other such measures and said that this was not necessary. He said the business places were not experiencing widespread retrenchment exercises or cases where people were lining up for food.
The Minister also said that President Bharrat Jagdeo wants to continue deliberations with the Chamber. He stated that the Head of State had recently met with a few persons from the group but that he was willing to meet with a bigger delegation from the group in the near future.
The GCCI has been in existence for 120 years having been started in 1889.
