Teams representing the Government of Guyana and Barama Company Limited (BCL), last week, held discussions on the Company’s request for a renewal of its Investment Development Agreement, which will expire in October.
A release from the Ministry of the Presidency on Monday said that the Government’s team comprised representatives from the Ministries of Natural Resources, Indigenous People’s Affairs, Business and Public Infrastructure, along with the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Guyana Forestry Commission.
The release said that the Government expects to benefit from expert advice from the International Institute for Environment and Development to help inform its decision. Formal talks on the matter will commence later this month covering several critical areas of interest.
In September 2015, then Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman visited the company’s Buck Hall operations to get a first-hand look at the operations and working conditions there. He had said that the Government would like to see more value-added production from investors in Guyana and he would make certain that this component is included in any agreement.
During that tour in September, General Manager of the company, Mohindra Chand had said that Barama has been one of the longstanding foreign companies in Guyana and while the challenges were many, it had never considered stopping operations here. Noting that more than $43 billion has been invested into its Guyana operations, he said that he expected Barama to grow and for further development to take place once the agreement is renewed. Barama has been operating in Guyana since 1991.
Barama has control of 1,611,195 hectares (3,981,349 acres) of forest in the northwest. Over the period that it has been here, questions have been raised about whether there has been sufficient value-adding compared to the export of logs. Plywood, which was meant to be a major product, accounts for only a small amount of exports from the country. When it signed its deal in 1991, BCL was also accorded broad tax concessions. The principals of the company are Malaysians.
