Up until now we have been unable to determine whether Guyana’s public or private sector will be represented at the March 20-21 Caribbean Exporters’ Colloquium at the Hilton Barbados Resort during which, according to a media release from the Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export), attendees “will be challenged to take an in-depth look at the report of the West Indian Commission – Time for Action – followed by an analysis of the region’s exports.”
Individual Caribbean territories, including Guyana, have done much bellyaching over the years about challenges associated with access to extra-regional markets for goods and services being produced in the region and the available evidence suggests that we have not been able to do much to surmount the problem. One of the more recent challenges we have had to face is the increasing thicket of legislation and attendant regulations in developed countries — particularly the United States and Canada — that place restraints on food imports. Those laws and regulations have to do chiefly with health considerations and, invariably, the requirements include production standards which are costly to attain.
In Guyana, little has been done to focus attention on the creeping blockades to the export of agricultural produce and agro-products; and whereas the larger manufacturers have been compelled to take measures to comply with the regulations imposed by importing countries smaller operators have simply had to cease importation.
The colloquium, which is being held as part of Caribbean Export Week, is being described as “an important step towards ensuring that the region’s leaders and the private sector sit down together and discuss the issues at hand with a view to realising a new framework for export development.”
Again, it has to be said that while there is much talk about public/private sector partnership here in Guyana we know little about the outcomes of those discourses. Certainly – at least as far as this newspaper is aware – not a great deal has been said during those discussions about how to go about beefing up our exports even though it is no secret that our manufacturers, and, to a lesser extent, our farmers, complain about a lack of export opportunities.
The available evidence suggests that we still lag behind several other Caribbean territories in terms of our readiness to maximise export opportunities. Issues of labelling and packaging, for example, are among those that we have been ventilating for some time now. A few of our manufacturers have come through in that regard though it has to be said that with labelling and packaging increasingly becoming part of the marketing equation, costs will become a greater factor for local small businesses.
The Barbados colloquium appears to be an effort to tackle the issue of maximising external markets for Caribbean products at a regional level which probably makes a good deal of sense since there may be possibilities of joint (regional) initiatives to deal with export market problems.
It concerns us that up to the time of writing some local agencies which we assumed would have been aware of the colloquium appeared to have no knowledge of it. This is not the first time that events organised by Caribbean Export – with which Guyana has considerable affiliation – would have passed and gone seemingly without the knowledge of local public or private sector entities.
Without making a song and dance about it, we simply wish to say that it would appear to be in Guyana’s interest to have some level of both public and private sector representation at the colloquium. It would make little sense to continue to advocate the expansion of the local manufacturing sector unless we are prepared to do much more to create market opportunities for those products overseas. And as has already become apparent, this is a complex exercise which we would do well to pursue in collaboration with the rest of the region.
