Barbados has agreed to train 6,000 Guyanese for the hospitality sector, according to President Irfaan Ali, who says it is among a number of mutually beneficial measures agreed following a bilateral engagement between him and Prime Minister Mia Mottley on the sidelines of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) held in Barbados earlier this month.
At a press conference yesterday, Irfaan Ali reported that he had an engagement with Mottley where they hammered out a “concrete time-bound framework for enhanced collaboration and trade.”
“You know Barbados has an established world-class hospitality programme and they are going to support us in a training of 6,000 Guyanese who will function in the hospitality sector…we have to move aggressively with the 6,000 Guyanese because we have a lot of investment in the hospitality sector that is coming and we need to have the technical capacity, the human resources to manage and to the work in those hotels,” he explained.
Other areas discussed by the two CARICOM leaders include increased production of food, removal of barriers to trade, the possibility of a Guyana-Barbados food terminal, transport logistics and efficiency, agro-processing facilities, and a Guyana-Barbados food sustainability plan. Additionally, Ali related that the two countries have also committed to identifying and to bridging those gaps through the exchange of technical expertise and the budgeting of resources.
“There will be an exchange of technicians between the Ministries of Agriculture to facilitate smooth and efficient transaction flow. So what we have agreed on is that we will have a Guyanese in the Ministry of Agriculture in Barbados and a Bajan in the Ministry of Agriculture in Guyana. So Guyanese can deal directly with their counterpart in Barbados and the same thing the Bajans can deal directly with their counterpart, thus removing the hassle, the barriers, the bureaucracy,” Ali explained.
“We discussed the sharing of port space to facilitate trade and reduce costs for the movement of goods between the two countries. So what we discuss is to identify specific port space for Barbados, in Guyana, and for Guyana in Barbados to reduce the costs of transportation to improve the efficiency to enhance trade to deliver products at far cheaper costs to the markets. Barbados is also committed to exploring our wood and forestry products to enhance value and incorporate them in the Barbados market,” he added.
Gold market hub
Both countries also discuss the possibility of adding value to Guyana’s gold by creating a gold market hub concept in Barbados.
Explaining the rationale behind that, President Ali said that in some Carib-bean countries cruise ships would dock there specifically for the gold market.
“That is what we are trying to create. Barbados is a major cruise destination and we’re working on the possibility of adding value to Guyana gold and creating a gold market hub concept in Barbados. Prime Minister Mottley and I committed to having a timeframe through which the results of this enhanced partnership will be felt by the population of both countries,” he said.
The Guyanese Head-of-State informed that a high-level delegation from Barbados has already visited Guyana to commence the technical work on the opportunities discussed. He added that the governments of the two countries will create the framework and discuss the policy of the gold market hub but the private sectors will be the main drivers of the initiative.
“So, in Barbados, for example, you have some capacity in the craft of jewellery making and in Guyana we have that capacity as well. So we have to now expand that capacity because we have to create a win-win situation.
As you know, the mechanism as to how the market will be established, the type of incentives that will have to be given, the type of tax regime that will have to be established, those are the things that have to be ironed out now that we have identified this as an area of cooperation and collaboration. But the drivers of this, after we have established the vehicle, would be the private sector,” Ali related.
Tourism and hospitality cooperation
Barbados is one of the premier tourist destinations in the Caribbean and Guyana is intending to capitalize on the expertise there. The two countries have committed to devoting 45 minutes of airtime to each other on their national airwaves for the promotion of each other’s tourism products.
“We agreed on working on the mechanism for the twinning of our tourism product, for the joint marketing of our tourism product and to promote Guyana and Barbados as a common destination. We spoke about the development of a joint marketing strategy in traditional and nontraditional markets,” Ali said.
Barbados and Guyana established diplomatic relations in 1966 and since then the two countries have been working together in a number of areas. However, over the years, Guyanese nationals have complained bitterly at the harsh and discriminatory treatment meted out to them by the Bajans. The “Guyanese bench,” which was removed a few years ago, in Barbados’ international airport was one of the sore points in the two countries relations.
