Surinamese optics store, Optiek Ninon yesterday opened its first overseas branch on Camp Street.
The opening coincided with the state visit to Guyana by Surinamese President Chandrikapersad Santokhi and his foreign minister Albert Ramdin was present at the ceremony.
A release from the company said that the late Ninon Brunings founded Optiek Ninon and opened her first store in Suriname in 1971. Fifty years later, the first overseas branch has been commissioned in Georgetown, the latest of a series of Surinamese businesses that have set up here in recent years.
The release said that Brunings’ “goal and passion was to make good eyesight and good quality glasses accessible to everyone. This promise was the basis for the company, Optiek Ninon. Ninon Brunings believed in exceptional optical care and was a visionary in the industry, evident from her famous message: `Make sure you have a satisfied customer today and then tomorrow you can count on their family, friends, and colleagues as customers.’”
The release said that over the past five decades, Optiek Ninon has characterised itself as an innovative, pro-active and progressive 100% Surinamese company that has grown into a leading optics chain with six branches in Suriname and now one in Guyana.
Guyana’s senior minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for finance, Dr Ashni Singh delivered remarks at the opening yesterday.
According to a release from the Ministry of Finance, Singh lauded the Surinamese company for its investment in Guyana and simultaneously urged Guyanese companies to invest in Suriname.
“President Irfaan Ali could not be more emphatic in his conviction that the private sector will be the driver of economic growth and transformation. Internally, in our respective countries we are committed to making every aspect of doing business easier and simpler, and right now work is ongoing to identify ways in which bureaucratic processes can be simplified,” Singh stated.
Accordng to the release, Suriname’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Inter-national Business and International Cooperation, while congratulating the company on its fiftieth anniversary, expressed satisfaction that a business in his country had grown and expanded to Guyana.
“This is the first branch in Georgetown. Establishing Optiek Ninon in Guyana is kind of a branding of Suriname as well. We take that as a value that we should not underestimate. We strongly believe that these two markets must be seen as one single market. We have to expand that market – it creates business opportunities, it creates opportunities for growth, investment and employment,” Ramdin said. He expressed the hope that Guyanese businesses will also expand and open their doors in Suriname to create opportunities as well for his country.
