The telling two-year absence of the widely supported local product display event, UNCAPPED, will come to an end at month end, with the return of the event conceptualized and afterwards successfully executed by the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association.
Having been sidelined by the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic for the two previous years, 2020 and 2021, this year’s event, which will be staged at the National Stadium on April 30 and May 1, will, the organizers say, will seek to help re-energize the country’s micro and small business sector which had ‘taken a beating’ during the pandemic and some of which have ‘gone under,’ with little if any hope of being revived.
When Stabroek Business spoke with the GMSA’s Vice President and Chairman of its Agro Processing sub-committee, Ramsay Ali he conceded that the ravages of covid-19 had had a telling impact on small businesses in several sectors but said that it was his hope that the return of the UNCAPPED product display would help restore entrepreneurial confidence and rejuvenate at least some of the businesses that had become so important to family incomes.
The announcement that the widely popular UNCAPPED product promotion even had been restored shortly after government announced that it was lifting most of the strictures put in place in an effort to stave off the rampaging pandemic, has been greeted with unbridled among those small business owners in the agro processing, agricultural and art and craft sectors with whom Stabroek Business spoke. Some of them have opined that government should now give consideration to a substantial financial allocation to help micro and small businesses in those sectors recover from what, in some cases, had been total shutdowns of their operations over the course of the strictures associated with covid-19.
The lifting of the strictures that had resulted in the UNCAPPED event being ‘parked’ over the past two years is expected to see scores of small businesses returning to the Providence Stadium for what had previously proven to be a successful product promotion event that, at least, matched what had once been the highly touted state-run GUYEXPO, staged for several years at the Sophia Exhibition Centre.
Whilst the two-day event is usually attended mostly by agro processors it has also proven to be a useful marketplace for businesses offering craft, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals as well as a venue for modest levels of relaxation and entertainment.
Vice Chairman of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) and one of the architects behind the conceptualization of the UNCAPPED event, Sterling Products General Manager Ramsay Ali told Stabroek Business during an interview that while the GMSA is aware that the spectre of the pandemic still hovers over the international community as a whole the organization had taken the decision to stage the event within the confines of the guidelines and precautions that had been spelt out by the authorities. Ali said that the organizers had discussed the importance of both participants and attendees at the event complying with such strictures as are still in place.
And according to the GMSA senior official the real value of the staging of this year’s UNCAPPED event was the opportunity that it afforded to allow “those who had lost so much during the pandemic to begin to put the pieces of their entrepreneurial lives together again. He said that the feedback received by the organizers suggests that at least one hundred agro processors could participate in this year’s event.
Ali told Stabroek Business, meanwhile, that the UNCAPPED event will, for the first time, be held over two days. This, he said was intended to create an extended opportunity for the display and sale of products given the fact that what is a useful marketing opportunity had been taken away over the past two years.
Meanwhile, Ali told the Stabroek Business that the organizers had taken a decision that in order to optimize the ‘buy local’ opportunity which the return of UNCAPPED now afforded a decision had been taken that the event allow exclusively for marketing of locally produced commodities only.
Ali told Stabroek Business, meanwhile, that this year’s event UNCAPPED Market Place is receiving support from both government and the Private Sector.
The issue of an increased level of government support for small businesses beyond the modest financial allocations afforded through the Small Business Bureau continues to be a widely-discussed issue in the small business sector with small business operators complaining that there are still not sufficient state-supported opportunities for the exposure and growth of those businesses. Several small business owners have endorsed the view that government should give consideration to a multi-million dollar financial allocation to help finance a “recovery plan” for micro and small businesses that were seriously affected by the strictures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, Ali, who also serves as Chairman of the Agro Processing Sub Sector of the GMSA, told Stabroek Business that the UNCAPPED Marketplace event will be seeking to assist some agro-processors who are planning to participate in the regional Agro-Fest event to be staged in Barbados next month. Guyana was invited to participate. According to Ali, up to this time, around twenty local Agro-Processors have signaled their interest in participating in the May 26-29 Agro-Fest event.
Regional product-promotion opportunities aside, Agro Fest provides opportunities for intra-regional cooperation among product producers that possess the potential to enhance intra-regional product marketing opportunities.
