The Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) is about to resuscitate its Guyana/China Business Council and igh on that agenda would be proposals for exchange visits among entrepreneurs from both countries, the association said in a press release.
Moreover, the third China/Caribbean business forum scheduled for Trinidad and Tobago later this year will provide another means of bringing Chinese and Caribbean entrepreneurs together.
The GMSA recently hosted the first business luncheon for 2011 at the Regency Suites, Georgetown, and the guest of honour was recently-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the People’s Republic of China, Yu Wenzhe.
The release said that the ambassador gave a vivid outline of the progress that China has made over the past three decades but he noted that his country was still developing.
Guyana, he acknowledged, was the first Caribbean country to have established diplomatic relations with China and since then the scale of trade and investment cooperation between the two countries has been expanding.
“Our bilateral trade has grown at a healthy rate of about 14.25% per year from 2005 to 2009. Though the trade volume decreased by 20.9% in 2009, affected by the international financial crisis, our economic and trade cooperation has shown strong resilience against the slow recovery of the world economy, and has recorded a fast rebound, out-stepping the pre-crisis level,” the ambassador is quoted as saying.
In recent years, he added, Chinese companies have demonstrated increasing interest in making investments in Guyana in the fields of mining, hydropower, electricity and forestry, to date totaling over US$100 million. And there are other investment projects currently in the pipeline worth more than US$1 billion.
He also expressed confidence that with advanced technologies and expertise Chinese companies could work with Guyanese to expand mutually beneficial cooperation in finance, agriculture, clean energy, labour, mining, and oil exploration, thus making new contributions to healthy and sustainable economic development between the two countries.
Meanwhile, GMSA President Clinton Williams, the release noted, expressed similar sentiments in his opening remarks to the gathering of entrepreneurs and representatives. He observed that Guyana stands to gain much by strengthening relations with this ‘economic giant’.
“Given the huge market potential in China, (and with third world countries where Guyana might enjoy preferential access), it seems logical that Guyana’s private sector should intensify its efforts to attract further direct investment from China and pursue additional lucrative business opportunities,” especially for large scale export of fruits, greens and vegetables, for agro-processing facilities for jams and jellies, and value-added products from locally available raw materials, Williams asserted.
