Berbice boasts the fastest growing economy in Guyana with the greatest potential to provide jobs and accommodate new businesses, according to President of the Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce Vishnu Doerga.
“Berbice has significant potential both as an area of opportunity for investment and as a location where there is need for both skilled and unskilled labour. Enterprising businessmen may well find useful niche opportunities here,” Doerga told Stabroek Business.
The advent of the Skeldon Sugar Factory had given rise to the need for various categories of skilled labour to effectively manage its operations, he said adding that suitably skilled and qualified persons seeking employment would do well to examine the prospects in the ancient county.
And according to Doerga further business prospects are likely to be created in Berbice with the realization of the bridging of the Corentyne river, a project that has been the subject of recent discussion between Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo and his Surinamese counterpart Desi Bouterse. “Some amount of exporting is already being done through the Guyana-Suriname ferry and the vision here is for an increase in the level of trading after a bridge has been erected. It can create the same kinds of possibilities like those that now exist between Guyana and Brazil,” Doerga said.
Meanwhile, according to the Upper Corentyne Chamber President the Berbice business community is hoping that the promised pay increase for sugar workers would boost consumer spending in the region which had seen a “normal level” of business activity this year. “If anything there has been a slight increase in spending. Some sectors including the entertainment, clothing, electronics sectors have done well,” Doerga said, adding that towards the end of the year Berbice had witnessed a slight acceleration in retail trade.
And according to Doerga some of the brightest prospects for the growth of business activity in Berbice may well lie in the tourism sector. “If you have not visited Berbice in a few years you are likely to find some changes including more hotels and restaurants which are some of the things that are needed for the development of a tourism sector. There is definitely a transformation taking place in Berbice.”
He said what was needed was the creation of a calendar of tourist events that would serve to attract visitors to the area and there had already been some discussion between the local business community and the Ministry of Tourism in this regard.
Doerga, who assumed the presidency of the UCCI in March this year, told Stabroek Business that part of the focus of the chamber was on encouraging the business community to embark on initiatives that focus on “giving back” to the community. “We believe that these kinds of initiatives are good for the growth of the community as well as for the growth of business in Berbice,” Doerga said.
Meanwhile, the Berbice businessman told Stabroek Business that the business community there was paying keen interest in unfolding developments in the sugar industry including the current industrial relations situation in the industry. Just over a month ago the Berbice and Corentyne Chambers of Commerce issued a statement which expressed concern over the “constant disruption and forced shut down” of GuySuCo’s operations, which, according to the statement was “not the solution to any of the problems affecting the industry or the sugar workers. The statement also expressed concern over the operational problems being experienced by the new Skeldon Sugar Factory, which it said could not be overstated.“Solutions have to be found immediately. It has to be fixed. Like the financial giant AIG in the United States, the new Skeldon Factory simply cannot fail,” the statement added.
