Addressing the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC)’s export facilitation workshop held at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre yesterday, Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder told attendees that the GMC is committed to increasing non-rice/sugar exports by 25 percent by 2020.
Boosting the export of other crops had been a major preoccupation of the previous PPP/C government but with limited results.
Holder in his remarks released by the Agriculture Ministry said that agricultural development has to move from subsistence survival to high return commercial investment.
Discussing how this can be done, he noted that the GMC provides assistance and support to expand exports through trade facilitation to local exporters and called on them to utilise the services provided by the organisation.
Holder also hinted at the resuscitation of an agricultural development bank.
“We are aware at the Ministry of the challenges exporters face, such as the difficultly in accessing credit to venture into large scale exportation. In fact, the Government of Guyana will facilitate access to affordable credit for individuals and groups, investigate, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, re-establishing an Agricul-tural and Industrial Deve-lopment Bank to meet the financing needs of the Agricultural sector”, he said.
Holder added that agriculture will continue to be a catalyst in the shaping of the ministry’s export portfolio. He pointed out that Caricom member states import more than US$4.5B in food from outside the region and Guyana, being a part of the Caricom Single Market and Economy has its eye firmly fixed on that market.
The minister also noted that in addressing the need to investigate various methods such as break-bulk, consolidated and less than a container shipment for both fresh and agro processed commodities, the GMC has engaged a sea freight provider. To accommodate such needs another option available to distributors is the option of exporting semi-processed commodities that can be utilised as raw material by overseas industries.
“We will continue to avail our services for use at subsidized prices to ensure that commodities are transported and stored at the required temperature through the use of our refrigerated trucks, and refrigerated containers thereby maintaining the cold chain after post-harvest”, Holder stated.
At the regional level, he said that the Ministry will “aggressively lobby” its counterparts in Caricom, particularly at the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to ensure that the conditions that are outlined in Article 15 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas are abided with. These, he said, include the operation of the single market, enhanced marketing of industrial and agricultural commodities so as to ensure international competitiveness and accelerated structural diversification of agricultural output.
Holder also reassured that his ministry intends to resolve the matter of non-tariff barriers on the exportation of agricultural products by lobbying at both the regional and international levels; bilaterally with individual trading partners and also with Caricom. It will also push for the extension of the list of admissible Caricom products in order to ensure that the same conditions that apply for products being imported from extra-regional countries are granted to member states within the region.
