What is being touted as a strategically important moment for the Caribbean will materialise with the hosting by Guyana of a Caribbean Investment Forum from July 10 to 12 this year.
Setting aside the fact that Guyana’s hosting of such a significant regional event underscores the country’s growing significance in the face of its new-found oil wealth, the deliberations and outcomes of the forum will determine whether the region, this time around, can take deliberate steps in the direction of forging a regional partnership that deliver positive results for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as a whole.
While the significance of regional fora has always been characterised by what we in the Caribbean customarily describe as the ‘noise in the market’ not yielding any significant sales, two factors may well have given rise to somewhat exalted expectations this time around. The first is the role that Guyana, in the face of its relatively recent oil discoveries, now plays as a regional leader in the area of regional development undertakings. The second is the clutch of challenges, not least its food security weaknesses, that face much of the rest of the region.
The organisers of the three-day forum, which will be staged at the National Cultural Centre in the country’s capital, Georgetown, will focus on themes that include sustainable agriculture and the ‘greening’ of regional economies, all issues with which the host country is particularly familiar as well as initiatives designed to effect a transition to a culture of digitalisation of business in the region.
The Head of the Guyana Office for Investment (G-Invest) is on record as saying that the forum is one of the biggest ever held in the region and that it expects to attract up to seven hundred investors. The participants are expected to come from both the Caribbean and further afield.
“We expect a lot of investors coming to see what it is about Guyana, and we are pushing the private sector. There is a call out for bankable projects, because the investors are coming in looking for bankable projects, and we want to showcase what Guyana is all about,” Dr. Ramsaroop reportedly told the Department of Public Information (DPI) in a recent interview.
With the Caribbean having grown tired of staging events that yield ‘noises in the market’ but little in terms of significant ‘sales,’ Guyana, whose petro-credentials have, for now at least, increased its overall ‘stock’ in the region, will be expected to deliver a forum that yields concrete outcomes, particularly in terms of bankable undertakings to intra-regional entrepreneurship, particularly in areas that include agriculture and agro- processing and meaningful sectorial investment streams.
Ramsaroop is quoted in the state media as saying that “agriculture and food security are among Guyana’s top priorities, moving forward.” The senior government official reportedly spoke to the regional ambition of realising its commitment to reducing extra-regional food imports by 25% by 2025 as well as contributing to the realisation of cheaper energy within the same time frame. The country’s ambitions, according to Dr. Ramsaroop, also include the realisation of large-scale agro-processing and sustainable farming.
While the focus of the government’s ‘lead’ player in the business and investment sector also focussed on what he reportedly identified as some of the successes of the local private sector, including the tourism sector, ‘watchers’ will be particularly interested in the period beyond the event itself to determine whether the undertakings arrived at, in what is expected to be the ‘up tempo’ environment of the forum will be actualised within time frames that are consistent with the extent of the some of the emergencies facing the region.
Dr Ramsaroop also reportedly asserted that a key goal of the July forum is to foster more joint ventures and partnerships in sectors that include tourism, which will generate different product offerings and intra-regional collaboration.
The investment official is also quoted as saying that “the investors coming into the region [are] part of Guyana’s development” and that “our private sector is stepping up to make sure that they get ready for partnership.” Adding that the event is a “very important conference,” Dr Ramsaroop is challenging the local private sector to “make sure they get ready for this influx of investors that will come in looking for these “bankable projects.”
