Planned this year to coincide with Guyana’s 50th anniversary independence celebrations, the May 12-15 GuyExpo will not only attempt to push for even higher levels of involvement by the Guyanese entrepreneurial community in the diaspora but will also be geared to ensure more aggressive domestic and international promotion of local enterprises with a view to enhancing their marketing prospects both at home and abroad and by extension ensuring the economic growth of Guyanese businesses.
And in order to ensure the full and effective participation in the event by representatives of the Guyanese community in the diaspora, event Chairperson Dawn Holder-Alert and Coordinator Tameca Sukdeo-Singh will meet diaspora representatives in New York on April 2 and 3 to discuss their involvement. Stabroek Business understands that those engagements will enable discussion on, among other things, the participation of overseas-based Guyanese businesses in GuyExpo.
Earlier this week, Stabroek Business met and spoke with Sukdeo-Singh who said that this year’s showpiece product promotion event will assume a more business-oriented character, aiming to ensure that local participants take away from the experience benefits that go beyond what, over the years, has come to be regarded simply as a one-off product display and short-term marketing opportunity. More than that Sukdeo-Singh said, the event which will, as is customary, be held at the Sophia Exhibition Pavilion will be making a more determined and elaborate effort to effectively integrate products made by the country’s Amerindian business community into the event.
Apart from seeking to maximize participation in the event by Guyanese entrepreneurs in the United States and Canada, the event, according to Sukdeo-Singh will be seeking to secure the support of those entrepreneurs for helping to promote locally-based businesses in the diaspora.
Stabroek Business has learnt, meanwhile, that what, historically, has been an initiative designed to offer mostly short-term product promotion opportunity and a weekend outing for visitors to the event, will, this year, assume a far greater focus on ensuring that those modest micro and small enterprises that participate in GuyExpo every year, take away from this year’s experience, a longer-term benefit that includes exposure that leads to an enhanced understanding of how to effectively promote and grow their businesses. Accordingly, Sukdeo-Singh said, GuyExpo this year will be offering the traditional multi-faceted product display side by side with a business education experience that seeks to help ensure the greater export-readiness of local enterprises. Moving local products to the stage of export-readiness will be one of the key emphases of the Ministry of Business at this year’s GuyExpo, Sukdeo-Singh said.
With preparations now reportedly well underway for the accommodation of local and overseas participants, Stabroek Business has been informed that provision is being made for the setting up of 400 stalls to facilitate what, the organizers say, is likely to be enthusiastic participation by exhibitors from the various sectors of the economy. The Ministry of Business, this newspaper has learnt, will be structuring GuyExpo 2016 to ensure that small businesses, particularly, benefit from seminar and workshop-type exposure that enhances their business, crucially, in the various facets of product promotion including packaging, labelling and direct marketing to a level that can help ensure their competitiveness on the international marketing.
Sukdeo-Singh told Stabroek Business that GuyExpo 2016 is likely to herald the acceleration of approaches to marketing that will help small business owners to better under the role of contemporary media—Facebook, Twitter et al—in reaching specialized audiences.
A critical aspect of the product promotion experience at GuyExpo 2016 will be sessions that are being staged as part of the event to help enhance awareness among local businesses of the importance of employing both traditional and non-traditional media in their product promotion pursuits and the structuring of marketing initiatives to maximize responses at the level of particular target markets.
The support for GuyExpo that is expected from experienced Guyanese business owners in the diaspora is expected to strengthen the push to accomplish more in terms of successfully promoting locally manufactured products overseas and the longer term outcomes of the event this year are expected to be used as a barometer to determine just where Guyana stands in terms of the export readiness of locally produced goods in a range of areas including agro-processed products.
The Ministry of Business, meanwhile, reportedly continues to pull out the stops to ensure that the ‘heavy hitters’ in the local business community take their places in GuyExpo 2016. Stabroek Business has been reliably informed that up to this point more than 200 local business houses have made applications to participate in the event.
The organizers have named a number of prominent business houses including some in the manufacturing and telecommunications sectors which, they say, will be ‘stepping up’ for the event.
Meanwhile, the external dimension to the promotion of GuyExpo 2016 will witness interface between members of the local planning committee and Guyanese in the diaspora with a view to determining the scale of overseas participation. Stabroek Business understands that the local planning committee will be working with local and regional tourism entities, media houses and the regional airline industry
