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.