Just days before today’s opening at the Providence Stadium of the third staging of the UNCAPPED product promotion event, one of the prime movers behind its original conceptualization, Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association, Vice President and Chairman of its agro-processing sub-sector, Ramsay Ali, told the Stabroek Business that plans to advance the development of agro processing locally had been significantly derailed by developments arising out of the intervention of the covid-19 pandemic.
“The reality is that COVID-19 has had a considerable negative impact on the sector in various ways. First, we experienced significant decreases in sales at all levels. Secondly, the disruption of the supply chain impacted on the ability of manufacturers to secure packaging materials. The disruption of the supply chain also resulted in increased costs of raw materials ranging in some instances from 30% to 50%,” Ali told the Stabroek Business. He said that he was aware of one instance in which the cost of packaging material had increased by 100%, a circumstance which meant that the manufacturer could not afford the cost of purchasing the bottles from China.
And according to Ali, in those instances where product producers had gone ahead and acquired costlier packaging, consumer demand diminished on account of price increases applied to compensate for those higher packaging costs.
Ali told Stabroek Business that while the supply chain continues to be erratic and the cost of shipping high “we are beginning to see some improvements in the behavior of the market.”
And even as he acknowledged the contribution that government had made to the planning and staging of the UNCAPPED event, previously, Meanwhile, The GMSA Vice President issued a call for an injection of more state funding into the local Small Business Bureau (SBB) “in order to make the Bureau friendlier to small businesses, giving them more grants after assessing them and even giving them grants more than once, after determining that they are doing well.”
Asked whether he had seen any real growth in the manufacturing/agro processing sector during the ‘covid-19 years Ali said that he had seen no real growth save and except in the instance of the local UMAMI agro products brand.
“While there are not many companies that have seen any real growth things have, more or less, remained stable,” he added.
And according to Ali participants’ appetite for the UNCAPPED event appears to have grown during the ‘lockdown’ years. “This year we are hoping to have more people there. We have close to one hundred (100) exhibitors or manufacturers compared with around sixty five (65) the last time around. There will be more variety in terms of goods and products that will be displayed,” Ali said, adding that the organizers were “expecting the exhibitors to improve their quality of what they are offering in terms of packaging and labeling.”
The GMSA Vice President disclosed, meanwhile, that the organizers of UNCAPPED were now seeking to utilize the event to promote local products more aggressively in the region. “But for covid-19 we would have had Uncapped in the some Caribbean islands where there are high numbers of Guyanese,” Ali said, naming Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia and the Eastern Seaboard of the USA as likely venues for UNCAPPED events in the future. “The plan is still in place and we are working towards that,” he added,
