Business

Giftland OfficeMax President Roy Beepat believes that the company’s $6 billion investment in its showpiece shopping mall currently under construction at Liliendaal, on the East Coast Demerara, is a high-profile reflection of the “upward trajectory” of Guyana’s investment climate.

Even as farmers and urban traders endure what they say is currently a retailers’ market for fresh fruit and vegetables, shoppers are taking advantage of what, earlier this week, appeared to be significantly reduced prices for fruit and vegetables.

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.

For the second year, a small group of die-hard apiculture enthusiasts, members of the Guyana Apiculture Society, assembled on the Water Street pavement outside the Muneshwer’s Complex last Saturday, to stage the society’s Honey Show.

Tax policy There is a tendency to use tax policy and not monetary policy to encourage investment in the country and to persuade foreigners to join the investment effort. 

Bookland proprietor Rupert Hopkinson is upbeat about what he regards as a major breakthrough for an initiative that has spent several years trying to popularise reading in Guyana.

For more than three decades Merriman’s Mall, originally constructed as a rink to accommodate what, in those days was a popular go-cart and scooter craze, has been the site of choice for fruit and vegetable vendors.

The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) wants government to better position the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to play a more central role in promoting Guyana as a location for foreign investment and as a destination for tourism as part of the push to build the country’s economy.

As the price of gold tumbled further, yesterday’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) was expected to focus on, among other things, likely engagements with government on concessions for the sector in the event it slipped into a free fall.

Found wanting A major knowledge product of the World Bank was likely to undergo some revisions in the way in which data are collected and used in one of its flagship publications if the report of an independent panel that was commissioned by the Bank’s Presi-dent last year is to be accepted by him.

Laluni is a microcosm of many farming communities along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway, where farming has been done for almost four decades by groups of migrants from various parts of the country who went there seeking betterment by transforming idle, arable lands into key centres of agricultural production.

Lloyd Doobay is modest about his evident success as a farmer and reluctant to concede, despite manifest evidence, that he is the owner of what is probably the single largest cherry orchard at Laluni on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

No significant economic accomplishment can be realised in Guyana in the absence of “a healthy dose of political accommodation”, President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Clinton Urling has said.

At the end of last year the global coconut craze caught the eye of Time Magazine.

The advent of urban shopping malls in Guyana has accommodated a surfeit of small businesses — retail trade pursuits that include cafeterias, costume jewellery shops and boutiques.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 517’s trading results showed consideration of $380,394 from 20,746 shares traded in 10 transactions as compared to session 516 which showed consideration of $15,757,600 from 775,492 shares traded in 18 transactions. 

Business Cartoons

Tying a makeshift hammock and grabbing a siesta in the shadow of the partially constructed Marriott Hotel would probably by considered be the authorities to be – at the very least – in bad taste

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.