Crime, coupled with concerns over the future of the sugar and rice industries are perhaps highest on the list of concerns of those residents of Berbice who put in an appearance at last weekend’s 11th Berbice Expo.
Tajpaul Adjodhea, President of the Central Corentyne Chamber of Com-merce, which hosted the Berbice Expo acknowledged the sharp reduction in the spending power of residents which reflects the reduced earnings from the country’s troubled sugar and rice industries. “The economy is sluggish,” Adjodhea told Stabroek Business.
This year’s Berbice Expo was probably 15% smaller than its immediate predecessor. Every year, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) presents a giant display that shows off the economic might of the sugar industry. This year, GuySuCo’s offering was reduced to a booth displaying mostly packaged sugar. As far as rice is concerned Nand Persaud & Company was the only representative of the sector present with any degree of prominence at the event.
Probably 60 per cent of the exhibitors were from Central Corentyne, most of them offering building materials, beverages and banking services. The largest number of stalls were offering costume jewellery, indications of the existence of what appears to be a less than thriving small business retail sector.
The rest of the exhibitors came from Upper Corentyne (approximately 10%) and representatives of the Berbice (New Amsterdam) Chamber. All around, there was a sameness to what they took to the Albion Sports Complex.
Overall, there appeared to be no overwhelming evidence of a surfeit of small businesses at the event, a circumstance which the Central Corentyne Chamber told Stabroek Business disappointed him. Adjodhea said none of the eight agro-processors from the community invited to the Expo turned up despite the fact that they were offered space at the exhibition at concessionary prices. Part of the problem, he believes, has to do with their failure to meet the bottling and labelling standards that the market requires.
In his address to last Friday’s opening of the Berbice Expo the Chamber President spoke about the need for the present government to “fast track” the creation of the Belvedere Industrial Site in order to “bring manufacturing to Berbice” and to “create hundreds of much-needed employment opportunities” in the region. In support of his argument he pointed to the limited number of manufacturing entities represented at last weekend’s event and the mounting concerns over the scarcity of jobs in the Berbice area particularly given the crisis in the sugar and rice industries.
Such new manufacturing investment projects that might be on the horizon for Berbice were reflected in the presence at the Berbice Expo for the first time of JR Building Supplies, opened about two months ago at Williamsburg, Central Corentyne and Fibre Tech Industrial Plastics of Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara. The latter entity has already realized an impressive measure of success elsewhere in the country and one of the company’s managers, Jonathan Persaud told Stabroek Business that plans are in train to establish a marketing outlet in Berbice. The J R Building Supplies representative told Stabroek Business that they were using the event to “test” the market.
Adjodhea returned to the subject of the sluggish Berbice economy; he accepted that manufacturing might be the way forward and that the ailing sugar and rice industries might themselves provide the impetus through diversification initiatives that add value to those products. Berbice investors, he says, will also have to begin to examine some of the various other agro processing options which the economy offers.
No more than three or four craftspeople put in an appearance at this year’s Berbice Expo. It is a sector which the Central Corentyne Chamber President believes holds promise though there is a general recognition that the expansion of the craft market depends to a large extent on the growth of the tourist industry. Adjodhea recalled that he had invited several craftspeople to come to the event.
Kevin Oudkerk, the craft vendor to whom we spoke is a self-taught sculptor who produces a range of ornamental objects by hand. He follows fairs and exhibitions across the country and, Berbice aside, has displayed his goods at events at Lethem, Wakenaam and at GuyExpo at Sophia. His experience has been that the local market for craft is small. His target market is mostly visitors from overseas. Their tastes control the market and Oudkerk had gone to the Berbice Expo hoping for a modest windfall from just those sorts of customers. He was also selling Chinese-manufactured handbags as a sort of cushion to take account of the vagaries of the craft market.
Time was, Adjodhea says, when the Berbice Expo would remain open until midnight. Last weekend there was evidence that the Albion Sports Complex was beginning to empty itself by just after 20:00 hrs. By 22:00 hrs the show was over. Crime is an ever present concern in Berbice and last weekend there was a heavy police presence at the event. The prevailing view is that the police can do more.
It cost the Chamber in excess of $10 million to stage this year’s Berbice Expo. The Chamber President said he anticipated a modest financial return on the Chamber’s investment though the hope is that the event might pay greater dividends in terms of expanding the Berbice economy and creating marketing and job opportunities. Some of the funding from previous Berbice Expos have been reinvested in local projects including renovation initiatives at the Albion Complex.
Promises of enhanced commercial ties between businesses enterprises in Guyana and Suriname in the wake of bilateral encounters between private sector and state agencies from the two countries ought, perhaps to have been manifested by some measure of Surinamese representation at the Berbice Expo. That failed to manifest itself despite an invitation to the Chamber in Suriname. The Central Corentyne Chamber President said that was one of the disappointments of the event. He was, he said, hoping the Berbice Expo might even break new ground in bilateral commercial and trade relations.
As is customary, games and toys were good sellers at the Berbice Expo. That, however, did little to conceal the fact that while children have become an increasingly important target market for entrepreneurs the Berbice economy is still fraught with uncertainties most of which are linked to the current uncertainties associated with the trials of the sugar and rice industries.
