Guyanese businesses participating in the October 18-20 Florida International Trade and Cultural (FITC) Expo in Fort Lauderdale will benefit from some of the free exhibition display booths assigned to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The cost-saving facility from which Guyanese participants in the event will benefit has been facilitated by the Guyanese American Chamber of Commerce (GACC). Stabroek Business has also learnt that the GACC has written to Tourism Minister Oneidge Walrond “to determine whether there is any assistance the Government of Guyana could provide to some of the small entrepreneurs who wish to participate in this event. Optimum Guyanese participation in the event in previous years has been negatively affected by the costs associated mostly with travel and meeting expenses associated with staying in the United States for the duration of the event.
Agro processors and representatives of businesses involved, with whom this newspaper spoke, all expressed the view that while their respective pursuits were, in fact, private ventures, the contribution which they make to the promotion of the country to the rest of the world fully justifies a government subsidy to enable them to participate in the event.
The FITC brings together more than one hundred business enterprises from sixty countries and allows for access by participants to lucrative United States markets by establishing links between participating countries and potential markets in the US.
GACC President Wesley Kirton told Stabroek Business earlier this week that the move by the entity is intended to seek to create the most favourable conditions for participation by small and medium-sized Guyana-based businesses in an event that can be “a pathway to lucrative markets.”
Product promotion apart, the event will allow for engagements between and among participants to discuss a range of issues including access to the United States market.
In 2019 the country rolled out the single largest delegation of any participating country. In that year several Guyanese participants benefitted from the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) briefings on regulations associated with the importation of goods into the US. During that year Guyanese businesses also established links with US buyers.
One of the standout outcomes of Guyana’s participation in the event has been the acquisition of a licence by the local spirits enterprise, Demerara Distillers Ltd. (DDL) to establish a World Trade Center in Guyana.
Chairperson for this year’s FITCE event Paola Isaac Baraya, Specialist Economist, International Trade is quoted in a GACC media release as saying that “there is a lot of interest in Guyana especially since its oil and gas discoveries and this interest was heightened last October when Florida was host to a high level delegation from Guyana headed by the Prime Minister which participated in a ‘Doing Business with Guyana’ forum put on by the Guyanese Chamber,” Baraya pointed out. She said her office is committed to working with the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for a unique opportunity to engage high-level government leaders, international trade experts, and delegations from around the world. “This is a great opportunity to participate in dialogue relating to international trade, foreign direct investment, and culture”, she said.
