Planning is underway for the staging by the Small Business Bureau (SBB) of a Client Expo at D’Urban Park later this year, as the state-run agency responsible for providing technical and financial support for local small and micro enterprises seeks to draw greater public attention to the underexploited potential in the small business sector and particularly in the agro-processing sub-sector.
Chief Executive Officer of the SBB Dr. Lowell Porter told Stabroek Business during an interview on Monday that the event, which he hoped would be “well attended by both members of the public and representatives of the business community,” is designed to allow visitors the opportunity to “measure for themselves the strides that have been made by the Bureau’s clients. “I believe that it is critically important that we build awareness of the fact that there are people out there, operating small and micro ventures that have considerable potential,” Porter told Stabroek Business. “Of course it is also an opportunity for the public to get an idea of the work that the Bureau has been doing with its clients,” Porter said.
While the prevailing weather-related uncertainties preclude the Bureau from making a “hard and fast” pronouncement on dates for the event, Porter told this newspaper that he envisaged that that the event would be staged during the October-November period. He said that the Expo will favour agro-products believed to have the potential to grow into significant enterprises. “We are particularly excited about some of the products from the SBB’s clients in the interior regions of the country and we will be affording them every opportunity to participate in the D’Urban Park event,” Porter said.
Porter told Stabroek Business that while the Bureau will be meeting the cost of ensuring that its interior non-coastal clients are able to make maximum use of the opportunity being afforded by the Expo event, it is also intended to reach out to business support organisations and the business community as a whole in the expectation that “various other forms of support” for the event might be forthcoming. “Frankly, I believe that this is just the kind of event which a business community that favours the aggressive promotion of a strong entrepreneurial spirit ought to want to support,” Porter declared.
Some of the agro-products that will be on display at the Expo will, Porter told Stabroek Business, provide examples of “new and interesting options” for the processing of local fruit. Porter explained that located as many of these are in hinterland communities, some of the products are not matched by comparable labelling and packaging. He explained, however, that it was felt that the quality of the products qualified them to be singled out for greater exposure to the broader local market and for investment in providing high-quality product presentation.
Meanwhile, Porter, who completed his second full year as CEO of the Small Business Bureau in April, told this newspaper that he believed that the country’s emerging agro-processing sector “offers an outstanding opportunity for the creation of a sector that can not only significantly impact the international market but also contribute in a serious way to job creation and entrepreneurial growth.” He added, “What we are witnessing is only a sampling of what exists. Much of the real talent exists in those far-flung regions where opportunities for countrywide product exposure are limited”.
Porter told Stabroek Business that it was his belief that among the entity’s clients were
“some incredible people” many of whom had developed “brilliant ideas” but “lack an enabling environment.” He noted that the Bureau’s seven female clients who had participated in last year’s GUYTIE event were now demonstrating a “greater sense of personal and entrepreneurial esteem. They are thinking big now,” and added, “I believe that what we now need is the creation of a strong state agency that will work diligently to help these women and other promising small businesses in the agro-processing sector find markets.”
Asked about his expectations for the forthcoming Client Expo, Porter said that apart from raising public awareness of the “immense promise and potential of the sector,” it was the expectation that “business owners, including distributors and other outlets would attend the event with a view to possibly finding ways of working with the agro-processors in the promotion of their products. “Quite apart from the work that we at the Bureau are doing we expect that the business community including the business support entities will also play a role in raising the profile of the these emerging businesses,” Porter told Stabroek Business.
