A US$226,000 grant programme via the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to assist the music, art, craft and agro processing industries to maximize their potential will kick off on October 1st and run for three years.
The programme is being executed under the aegis of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the grant was provided through the CARIFORUM-EU, Economic Partnership Agreement and Standby Facility for Capacity Building under the 10th European Development Fund.
“The programme aims to enhance the managerial, technical and operational capacity of MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) in Guyana, thereby contributing to increased productivity, profitability and competitiveness,” Project Coordinator Deslyn Griffith told a GCCI press conference on Tuesday.
The programme will commence on October 1st 2016 and will run until the same time in 2019.
There is no direct cash incentive for applicants but knowledge gained during the course of the programme is expected to help young entrepreneurs channel same to build their businesses.
The Chamber will solicit the help of experts to guide budding entrepreneurial applicants so as to maximise their skills and services in a way to yield profits. Guidance will come in many forms, ranging from strategic marketing planning, expanding market reach and guidelines and the importance of standards of goods.
The Project Coordinator explained that the Chamber will be working with budding entrepreneurs with the objective of equipping them with the necessary marketing and capacity building skills to sell their products effectively, hence turning profits and expanding their reach regionally and internationally.
However, she believes that many small business owners have to evolve out of a mindset of personal branding and focus largely on targeting new markets.
“I think as a country one of the things we need to be very realistic about…we have got this self-ownership thing. That is one of the reasons why the grant came into existence. It came out of the Chamber, with work it was doing with the CDB…seeing that there were gaps in some of these industries where there was so much potential. When you look at the music industry alone, potentially has a $300M annual GDP contribution that it can make, if it is done the way that it should be. But, we have a self-thing going, and if you look at agro processors, we name the products after ourselves. We name it ‘Deslyn’s pepper sauce’, ‘Vishnu’s achar’ and nobody in the international world cares who is Deslyn or Vishnu,” Griffith reasoned.
“When we sing our music, our artistes have to say Guyana, ‘Where meh GT Posse’ and these kinds of things. But if you are going to send that music to a friend in Europe or Asia, they don’t care who the GT Posse is. Further, they don’t even know what the GT Posse means. The thing is we have to understand that the mindset is now changing in Guyana. We recognize that as an artist you are not buying my CDs when I put them out in an original….you are not going to buy Ann’s pepper sauce or Deslyn’s pepper sauce you will go and buy Grace pepper sauce because it is foreign, it is of a better quality, better standard. We don’t watch our local shows…,” she added.
Nonetheless she believes that the mindset is changing and persons will benefit significantly from the Chamber’s project. “It is all well and good to go out there but there are things we have to change and things we have to do and this is precisely what we are doing,” Griffith said.
Meanwhile, the Chamber also informed on its upcoming plans which will next year see a collaboration with the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) for a wine and seafood festival. President of the GCCI, Vishnu Doerga explained that the partnership was formed for the hosting of the event because it caters to a tourism and hospitality-oriented market.
There is also an Information Technology forum and expo coming up, next month, which aims to gear businesses to understand, what is available in terms of both physical and online services. The expo will be a one-stop shop, catering to the security needs of not only the business community but security for domestic and personal use.
When the programme was launched in June, it was stated that it was expected to develop and initiate implementation of approximately 19 export development plans, strategies and action plans.
