Last week Thursday (28/11/2019), the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) gave a preview of its strategic development plan for Guyana. One will have to await the complete documentation before making a substantial comment, but from an economic standpoint, the organisation does not appear to have broken much new ground.
Indeed, the GCCI’s major recommendation that successive governments should stay within the main parameters of a single development plan is noble, but a section of the trade union movement in Guyana has been making such a request for decades. Lately, based upon International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 144, in 2014 the Guyana Trades Union Council envisaged a medium to long term social partnership, the major objectives of which were the realisation of a stable rate of exchange; the maintenance of a stable industrial climate; the restructuring of the economy; the reduction of social disparities through increased employment; national commitment to increased productivity; the reduction of unemployment levels; achieving a balance between prices and incomes; consolidation of the process of tripartite consultation, and continually reducing crime levels (Future Notes, SN: 19/02/2014).