The efforts of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) to induct greater numbers of local small and medium enterprises into the mainstream business sector has led to its Membership Committee being accorded increasingly weighty responsibilities in the period ahead.
Chairperson of the chamber’s Membership Committee Anije Lambert told Stabroek Business on Tuesday that membership of the organization now stands at 170 and that the committee had set itself a target of a further 50 members in the current year.
Membership Officer Wayne Seecharran says that the drive by the chamber to broaden its membership base was not only “a question of numbers” but also an initiative designed to help businesses grow.
Both Seecharran and Lambert conceded that part of the challenge associated with persuading small entrepreneurial ventures to join the chamber had to do with their proper registration as a business. Being registered as a business is one of the essential criteria for becoming a member of the chamber and, says, Lambert, “registration is sometimes an issue.”
The GCCI offers membership in four categories – ordinary; non-resident; associate, which is open to business support organisations and country-based organisations. Since January this year 14 companies have become members of the GCCI.
During an interview earlier this week, Lambert and Seecharran told Stabroek Business that the GCCI was now better positioned to provide incentives to small businesses to join the chamber on account of funding provided by the Caribbean Development Bank for a three-year programme aimed at providing various forms of training – seminars and workshops – for small businesses. The programme, which seeks to provide 25 workshops for small and micro enterprises over the three-year period creates a collaborative arrangement with the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) that will focus laboratory management, quality management and food safety management.
Additionally, the GCCI will seek to support the growth of small businesses through the utilization of platforms for direct marketing including social media communication channels.
Some weeks ago the chamber told this newspaper that it would be utilizing its resources to support capacity building amongst the various regional chambers.
