In circumstances where small businesses in Guyana are still not exactly ‘going wild’ over the extent to which their growth ambitions are receiving sufficiently energetic backing from the country’s ‘high profile’ commercial banks in pursuit of the growth of their businesses, their counterpart Small Business Enterprise [SME’s] in Trinidad and Tobago would appear to be ‘singing a different tune.’ A November 18 article published in the Trinidad Guardian (Local Banks Getting Behind SME’s) reports that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) are singing the praises of the country’s commercial banks which are reportedly generously ‘shelling out’ in an effort to help their businesses grow.
A report on a recent SME Marketplace (Trinidad Guardian, Sunday December 19) alludes to instances of timely interventions by Republic Bank to help T&T small businesses grow to a point of making a mark on competitive international markets. The article cites the case of the T&T e-commerce operation, Golden Rootz Ltd. (which exports herbs and spices naturally grown in Trinidad) whose present “strong international presence in the US and the UK with its sights set to enter other markets such as Europe” is due to the support that it has received from Republic Bank TT. Golden Rootz Ltd., attributes its entrepreneurial breakthrough largely to the intervention of Republic Bank TT which, the company’s owner, Myckiel Haynes is quoted as saying.