Underscoring what it says has been its role over the past year in facilitating the improvement of local exporters’ marketing, networking and monitoring tools and capabilities, the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) on Monday disclosed that it had made what a release from the agency described as “substantial progress” in promoting Guyana’s exports in international markets during 2018.
The GO-Invest release stated that 56 local businesses involved in the supply of gold, diamonds, coffee, coconut-oil, heart-of-palm, pepper, fruit-pulp, dressed-lumber, noodles, beverages, and clay brick among other products were matched with overseas clients, though it provided no details regarding the outcomes of those matches.
According to the state-run investment promotion agency, it also completed what it described as a robust programme of inward and outward missions in 2018 designed to explore mutually beneficial investment opportunities and implement trade-related activities the purpose of which was to obtain new markets and increase exports.
While disclosures regarding the activities by GO-Invest aimed at broadening the base of international markets for local goods and services, interest is likely to focus on the extent to which the exertions of the agency yielded concrete results insofar as securing markets is concerned. The past year has witnessed a number of high-profile initiatives involving state and private sector partnership to seek to broaden the base of the international market for locally made products. The most recent of these exercises, the GUYTIE initiative, while drawing some measure of international attention to Guyana as a source of agro-processed and manufactured goods did little to open new markets.
GO-Invest however, would appear to be doubling down on its efforts to promote exports and improve investments, alluding to its participation in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded National Quality Infrastructure Project, a central component of which, the release says, “is a comprehensive review of the Agency’s current institutional and operational model with the objective of strengthening and improving its ability to promote exports and attract investments. Arising from this assessment, a plan will be developed to overhaul GO-Invest’s strategic and operational arrangements and refine its investment promotion and export promotion strategies in keeping with current best practices in trade and investment promotion models,” the release added.
Meanwhile, the state investment promotion agency disclosed in its release that its activities in 2018 succeeded in generating “facilitated investments” worth a total of GY$89.4 billion and GY$52.2 billion from 56 “executed invest-ments…across all platforms and sectors of Guyana’s economy.” These investments, it says, “are expected to create 1,644 jobs when the projects are fully operational.” The new jobs and associated training activities, the release noted, “will amplify Guyana’s human resource capabilities across key sectors including agriculture, light manufacturing, tourism, services, forestry and energy.”
Of the 56 executed investments, 38 were local, 15 were Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and 3 were joint ventures with the foreign direct investments being “predominantly within the agriculture, services and manufacturing sectors, along with 1 in the information and communication technology sector.”
The FDI projects involved pre-cast concrete construction materials, coco peat from coconut shells, ventures in transshipment and aviation as well as the Business Process Outsourcing Services (call centre) sector. Joint venture agreements executed were in the energy, tourism and manufacturing sectors. The release says that “investors’ projections” put the value of FDI projects at GY$11.3 billion while joint ventures totalled GY$2.3 billion.
Meanwhile the GOINVEST release again alluded to “investors’ figures,” which it says puts the value of local investments in 2018 at GY$38.5 billion, with agriculture, energy and light manufacturing attracting most of that investment sector. These projects, it says, are projected to create at least 1,056 jobs when fully operational.
