The Government of Trinidad and Tobago announced earlier this month that it would spend TT$5 million over the next eighteen months to raise public awareness in the twin-island republic regarding the importance of its tourism product.
This newspaper first learnt of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Security Seminar several weeks ago on the day that several sections of the media reported a spate of robberies in the city.
If the full details of what we are told will be an important two-day (August 14-15) national economic summit are yet to be made known, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wondering aloud about the significance of this forum and about just what the anticipated outcomes are.
There is a dimension to Guyana’s gold-mining industry that is venal, replete with extortion, bribery and violent crime.
We are yet to hear any further details of what we were told was a string of unfortunate occurrences that led to a number of exhibitors from Guyana being unable to participate in an Atlanta, USA trade fair and exhibition in which they had invested considerable sums of money, hoping, presumably, to recoup (at least) some of their investments through sales and, in the longer term, to create more permanent markets.
It was clear from the tone of Tuesday’s Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) media release that the chamber is pretty sore over what it believes is the evidence provided in Monday’s spate of robberies that the police are not doing enough to protect the business community.
It appears that the local manufacturing sector – or perhaps more accurately its umbrella organisation, the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) – has opted for deafening silence in the wake of what is widely known to be a condition of crisis in the local industry.
Once you read the address delivered by Canada’s High Commissioner to Guyana David Devine at the June 27 Guyana Investment Forum it is difficult to evade the conclusion that its primary purpose was to remind the political administration and the private sector that the criteria for a convivial investment climate goes beyond the framing of laws and regulations.
Our experience of engaging the business community has taught us that many, perhaps most businessmen and women, prefer to keep a low profile, avoid the media and simply get on with the business of doing business.
The University of Guyana (UG) continues to come under sustained criticism for reasons that have to do with deficiencies in the quality of service it provides.
Recent conversations with the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) suggest that both organisations are keen to pursue agendas that have to do with enhancing the quality of the private sector and increasing its contribution to national wealth.
If it has long been accepted that the filth and desecration that is commonplace on the streets and sidewalks and in gutters and alleyways in our city are, by and large, the remains of the trading day and that much of the onus is on our urban traders – whether they be street vendors or established merchants – to take some measure of responsibility for the disposal of garbage, the practice of indiscriminate dumping persists unabated.
The commencement of a slide in gold prices on the international market in April coincided almost precisely with new external signals that the local gold-mining sector will have to begin to contemplate what one might describe as life without mercury.
Clifford Reis’ brief summary of aspects of the performance of the group of companies comprising Banks DIH Ltd over the past six months, underscores the entity’s ongoing commitment to strengthening its capacity to provide the goods and services it offers to Guyanese consumers.
When this newspaper spoke with Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Ronald Webster seeking an official private sector comment on the alleged recent transgressions of Chinese investor Bai Shan Lin, he told us he was not ideally positioned to pronounce on the issue, as he did not have any pertinent information at his disposal.
The recent publication of the 2012 Report of the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) throws a further positive spotlight on a local small business sector which, in recent months, has already been illuminated by two important recent developments; first, there was the announcement by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) that it was opening a membership window to small businesses which, hitherto, could not become members of the Chamber.
One of the realities that is increasingly being driven home to small business owners and aspirants, Business Support Organisations (BSOs) and the government is that it really makes no sense standing around and bellyaching over the lack of access which SMEs must endure in their efforts to secure funding from local commercial banks for the expansion/ upgrading of small businesses or for the creation of new ones.
Correcting Guyana’s unflattering image as a corruption-ridden country will have to be a priority of his administration if some of his other goals like attracting foreign investment are to be realised.
Recent slippages in the price of gold, particularly those that occurred between two Mondays ago and last Friday have been sufficient to raise eyebrows and, in some cases, even to trigger a hint of nervousness.
This newspaper has commented in previous weeks on the air of expectancy which, in recent months, appears to have enveloped the small business sector, a circumstance which is being attributed to the advent of the Small Business Bureau and more recently the release by the IDB of the first tranche of funding
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