Advocating for the allocation of a “fair share” of the returns from the country’s oil and gas industry, bringing the Essequibo Chamber of Commerce (ECC) into the national business mainstream and aggressively promoting the ‘Cinderella County’ as a hotspot for tourism are among the key priorities of Region Two businessman Roopan Ramotar who, last Sunday, was elected Chairman of the (ECC).
Having agreed to grant the Stabroek Business his first interview to share his initial thoughts on the likely direction of what has been a largely dormant Essequibo Chamber, Ramotar told this newspaper that he believed that his experience of and involvement in various key sections of the country’s economy including logging, mining, agriculture and agro-processing, as an investor, has equipped him to help develop a template for raising the profile of Region Two as a centre for enterprise in Guyana. And the new Essequibo Chamber President told this newspaper that in order to kick-start that process he intends, shortly, to convene a meeting of representatives of the key state and private sector entities in the Region with a view to fashioning an agenda that will have as its key mission creating a direction for the business support organization. “From my experience it is not just the private sector that is needed to create a plan for business,” Ramotar told Stabroek Business.
Beyond the business community, Ramotar said that he will also be inviting representatives of law enforcement, the local authority and the various other organizations who, “for different important reasons,” all have some role to play in strengthening the Essequibo Chamber and by extension the business sector in the region.
And asserting that raising the profile of business in Essequibo has to materialize out of a national effort, Ramotar said that he will shortly be extending an invitation to key players from the business sector as a whole, including representatives of the Georgetown-based Business Support Organizations, including the Private Sector Commission to travel to Essequibo with a view to “putting heads together” to develop a strategy for maximizing the business potential of the region. He said that the issues that will be ventilated at that forum will include the development of strategies for maximizing the economic potential of Essequibo through business initiatives that will include infrastructure development, tourism and agro processing.
Currently one of Essequibo’s leading coconut farmers and exporters, Ramotar attracted local media headlines last year following the refusal by the authorities in Trinidad and Tobago to have his coconut water marketed there, a development that provoked a sharp and assertive response from sections of the local business community. Trinidad and Tobago’s rejection of the local coconut water sparked a generous measure of verbal protest here on the back of the insistence by the Government Analyst-Food & Drugs Department (GAFDD) that Ramotar’s coconut water had met all of the health-related requirements to be imported into Trinidad and Tobago and sold there. The food safety authorities in Jamaica had also concurred with that assessment.
Earlier this week, in reflecting on the issue Ramotar said that it was ironic that his coconut water was currently being sold in Trinidad and Tobago under a local (T&T) brand.
Asked about how the coconut industry in Region Two was faring, Ramotar said that he believed that there was a good future for the coconut industry ahead. He said that his own coconut groves “cannot produce fast enough” to supply the available markets. “We are presently supplying a few Guyanese exporters that ship to New York and Florida. We are also in Dominica and Antigua and will shortly be working with markets in other Caribbean territories.”
Still seemingly piqued by what he insists was a blatant protectionist measure by Port of Spain to hurt a Guyana export market, Ramotar told Stabroek Business that he considered it an irony that the emergence of an oil and gas industry in Guyana now meant that businesses in the twin-island republic were enjoying “a free ride” in terms of taking advantage of the opportunities that Guyana now has to offer. He said that while he was not taking a position that seeks to shut out Trinidad and Tobago businesses from the local oil and gas sector, he believed that government should put mechanisms in place to ensure that Guyanese enjoy a majority stake (a minimum of 51%) in such local content-related enterprises as arise from the pursuits related to the ongoing oil-recovery operations. “I believe that part of Guyana’s problem is that sometimes, in dealing with these issues, we carry ourselves as though we are beggars. We have to show the world that we are not beggars. One of the things that we need to address, for example, is the way in which some of our people are still treated at foreign airports. We have to carry ourselves with pride and show the world that we are not beggars.”
He said that he would wish to see the free trade clarion call being mouthed across the region be replaced by a commitment to fair trade. “I’d like to see around a 75% increase in trade among CARICOM countries,” he added.
Specifically, he says that he wants to see a swift settlement of the trade issues between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago within the framework of the current diplomatic engagement between Georgetown and Port of Spain. “We need to work together to develop the region rather than looking abroad.”
And according to Ramotar while our recently found oil deposits are a national resource, “I am yet to see an Essequibo business benefitting from the local content aspect of oil and gas.” Ramotar told Stabroek Business that the economic benefits accruing to Essequibo from the emerging oil and gas industry will be one of the concerns of the Essequibo Chamber going forward.
And while Ramotar says he shares the upbeat national mood created by the country’s oil finds, he believes that hopes for sustained oil-related wealth could be thwarted by what he says is the focus on “non-oil energy,” going forward and the effects on oil prices ‘down the road.” Accordingly, the Essequibo businessman said that he remains wedded to the idea that resources from the oil and gas industry should be pumped directly into agriculture and agro processing. He said that while there are returns accruing from the oil and gas sector a generous measure of those resources should be channeled into creating the infrastructure that will further consolidate what is already a strong agriculture sector and investing in the various facets of a strong agro processing sector including factories for processing, developing processing techniques, and packaging and labeling, among others.
Ramotar told Stabroek Business, meanwhile, that the mission of building a strong, business-centred Essequibo economy is dependent on the creation of an enabling physical environment. He said that the creation of a thriving business environment in Essequibo cannot be separated from the need to create an enhanced community that addressed issues like better roads, traffic management and access roads to the forests in order to tap timber which continues to be one of Essequibo’s important economic assets.
Agriculture and agro processing aside, Ramotar said that he believed that the natural beauty of Essequibo offers “a great opportunity” for the creation of a lucrative tourism industry. He said that the region’s low crime rate coupled with its attractive features including its lakes, trails and fishing facilities is ripe for major investment in the development of a world class tourism destination.
