Guyana on Thursday participated in a sensitization forum on the Canadian market for fresh and processed fruits and vegetables to better understand the structure of the North American markets in order to export a wide array of produce.
The meeting of representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA), Trade Facilitation Organisation (TFO) of Canada and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) follows the signing of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between TFO and IICA in 2008, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported.
The cooperation programme focuses on the agro-food Canadian market access programme, an export packaging technical training and sourcing support, trade missions to Canada for Guyanese exporters and vice versa and seminars in trading and identifying packaging materials.
TFO Consultant Bertrand Walle provided an overview in the area of information, advice and contact as he outlined the requirements needed to improve trade.
Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said the sensitisation forum comes at a time when CARICOM will be embarking on negotiations for a long-term trade agreement with Canada.
Last year Canada found itself at the top of Guyana’s trading partner list, surpassing the USA. Persaud said that exports from Guyana to Canada during that time registered around a 49 percent increase from 10 years ago.
He also described the seminar as timely as Guyana has commenced its agricultural diversification and export programme which seeks to prepare the agriculture sector for the vast market opportunities that exist in the Caribbean and North America, particularly Can-ada.
“We have selected a range of products which we want to develop -new value commodity chains – fruits and vegetables, livestock, aquaculture and hope that we can develop vibrant activities in those sub-sectors so that we can be able to enhance exports,” Persaud is quoted by GINA as saying.
Head of the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) Geoff Da Silva who is also Chairman of the Board of the GMC said that Canada is one of Guyana’s major export markets in gold, El Dorado rum and seafood.
Da Silva said there is now need for a mainstreaming of the Canadian market since in the past the targets have always been on the Guyanese community in Toronto and CARICOM.
The sensitization session is a continuation of a trade facilitation seminar hosted by IICA in February 2008, targeting fresh produce exporters and technical staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and GMC.
The sessions held at the Guyana School of Agriculture and the University of Guyana (UG) exposed the participants to some of the key requirements to penetrate the overseas markets.
It was also geared at helping the GMC in capacity building with the collection, processing and management of information for marketing. Subsequently Guyana became a member of the Marketing Information Organisation of the Americas.
Additionally the sensitization session is alsothe outcome of a request by Guyana in 2007 for IICA to suport the Agriculture Ministry and GMC to find new overseas market opportunities for local farmers involved in the agri-diversification programme.
