Bilateral trade and economic relations between Guyana and Brazil characterized by exchange visits by delegations from the two countries have always been a fairly reliable barometer of the timbre of relations between them. Earlier this week, in a baffling break with the customary practice, the Government Information Agency (GINA) issued a media release on the most recent visit by a local trade and investment team to Brazil at least a full 48 hours after the delegation had arrived in Boa Vista and commenced engagements there.
GINA said in its media release that the Guyana team comprised 12 members drawn from the Ministry of Business, the Guyana Office for Investment, Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GL&SC) and the Ministry of Agriculture and described the trip as a “Trade and Investment Explanatory Mission.” The state-run news agency reported that engagements in Brazil would “surround potential land options, how Brazilian businesses could access land in Guyana for large-scale agricultural operations, incentives and procedures for the agricultural sector” as well as “general information on Guyana’s agricultural sector, and technical requirements when undertaking specific agricultural activities in Guyana.”
Trade and economic matters have traditionally been high on the agenda of bilateral exchange in the form of visits between Guyana and Brazil though both public and private sector officials agree that the practical returns for Guyana have been minimal. Potential for a strong bilateral relationship is generally believed to be considerable, particularly in sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and information technology, among others, though little has been actualized from the initiative.
The creation of an all-weather road link between the two countries is widely believed to be likely to trigger an impetus in Guyana/Brazil trade and economic relations though the completion of such a project is not known to be on the immediate term agenda of either country.
Trevor Benn
The GINA release said the objective of the visit was to “bring together decision-makers in the relevant Guyanese agencies with serious Brazilian investors who are interested and ready to invest in large scale agri-business in Guyana.”
Asked whether the private sector had been apprised of the Brazil visit and invited to be part of the delegation a Private Sector Commission (PSC) official who declined to be named and said that he was not authorized to be to speak for the PSC said nonetheless that given what GINA said was the purpose of the visit “one might have thought that such a visit would be on interest to the local private sector.”
GINA said in its release that the visit enabled discussions between Chief Executive Officer of the GL&SC Trevor Benn and President of the Land Institute of Roraima State Alyson Rogers Soars Macedon arising out of which it has been proposed that a Memorandum of Understanding designed to create a formal relationship be fashioned.
According to GINA, as part of the exercise, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin was also scheduled to be in Boa Vista to deliver an address to a number of unnamed “stakeholders” on “viable alternatives to boost border businesses, and the economic consolidation of the region.”
While the GINA release asserted that prospects for trade growth between Guyana and Roraima State of Brazil are “promising,” officials here agree that efforts to strengthen trade links between the two countries have been characterized mostly by underachievement. The official assessment of the possibilities allude to the potential for the export of soya bean and soya bean meal to Guyana and the export to Brazil of “fertilizer and other agricultural materials” from Guyana. The exchange also addressed the likelihood of Roraima and other Brazilian states engaging in cultivation in Guyana “on public lands assigned under the land leasing regime of the Government of Guyana.”
