Up to 300 booths run by vendors drawn from local small and medium-sized enterprises are likely to be set up at the National Exhibition Centre, Sophia to host the one-off Business Exposition 2015.
At a launching ceremony held at Sophia on Wednesday it was disclosed that the November 23-25 event was being staged in lieu of the customary larger GuyExpo event which will be restored in 2016 for the country’s 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations.
Business Minister Dominic Gaskin said the event was expected to provide an opportunity for small vendors to display locally made products to what, over the years, has been a sizeable market comprising Guyanese attending the event and enthusiastically patronizing the vendors. Asked whether the focus on locally produced goods was intended to discourage the large army of vendors who customarily use the occasion of GuyExpo to purchase and resell primarily cheap imported toys, the minister said that while it would have been preferable if there could be a predominance of locally produced goods at the event the organizers had no intention of intervening to place restraints on what vendors offer for display or sale.
Information circulated by the Ministry of Business indicates that it has begun to contact potential buyers “from targeted overseas governmental agencies, companies and business persons” in connection with their participation in the event.
Business Ministry Permanent Secretary Derrick Cummings provided details of the area in which the exposition will be staged and indicated that media houses will be invited to ‘walk the ground’ once the infrastructure for the event had been put in place.
Organized by the Ministry of Business in collaboration with the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA), the exposition, the organizers say, is expected to serve as a catalyst for the development of local and medium-sized businesses in Guyana, to showcase locally produced goods and services and link them to market and investment opportunities; to interweave the arts and fashion into opportunities to leapfrog small business growth.
A recurring area of controversy with GuyExpo over the years has been what is often felt to be the predominance of entertainment, predominantly loud music. Gaskin again remarked on Wednesday that the entertainment element of GuyExpo had tended to relegate the event itself to a GuyExpo. He said that beginning with next month’s event it was the intention to redress that balance.
