Twice recently local private sector enterprises missed out on golden opportunities to be considered for the international marketing of goods and services, which were made available through projects funded by the Caribbean Export Development Agency, commonly referred to as Caribbean Export.
Caribbean Export is a regional agency which last year received generous funding from the European Union to provide support for business enterprises in Cariforum countries seeking to make inroads into the global (particularly European) market. Earlier this year, business houses in the region were invited to send to Caribbean Export submissions including brief video presentations that could be used as marketing tools for their businesses in Europe. It was a competition and the best entries have been selected and will now be afforded the privilege of marketing their goods and services at the London Summer Olympics, a prize which would cost a considerable sum of money if it had to be paid for.
It is not so much the fact that no Guyanese company is among the winners of this prize that matters but the fact that not a single local business entered the Caribbean Export competition. None of the private sector organizations could provide any persuasive reason as to why there were no entries from Guyana, even though Guyana Manufacturers and Services official Clem Duncan and Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Senior Vice President Lance Hinds did provide this newspaper with their perspectives – albeit, differing ones – on the failure of local businesses to enter the competition.
We discovered that Guyana had also missed out on another opportunity afforded by Caribbean Export, this time to local architects, to have their designs displayed in London. Once again it was a question – it seems – of information not reaching its intended target audience.
In both instances we sought a comment from Caribbean Export and in both instances it was made clear that the agency could think of no reason why – given the fact that the two events were publicized in the regional media and (in the case of the first competition) the information sent to local private sector agencies and directly to some businesses – word would not have reached local target audiences.
What we found interesting about these two instances of lost opportunity was the local small and medium-sized enterprises complain frequently about issues that affect the growth of their businesses and numbered among those issues, invariably, are access to investment capital and marketing opportunities. Both forms of assistance (and more) are available under Caribbean Export programmes and as far as we are told few local firms pay an interest in these opportunities.
In fairness to local firms access to loans, grants and technical assistance from multilateral support entities is often attended by a thicket of rules and regulations and form-completion requirements that serve as a considerable disincentive. As Hinds pointed out at a GCCI media briefing recently, however, Caribbean Export has sought to remove much of the clutter associated with the paperwork.
It appears too that the Georgetown Chamber – which appears to be assuming a much more prominent role as a private sector umbrella body – along with Go-Invest have agreed to work together to create a more reliable link between Caribbean Export and the local private sector. That is a salutary development though Mr Hinds did say – and correctly, in our view – that ultimately the quality of the local private sector’s relationship with the regional body will depend on how keen it is to take advantage of what it has to offer.
