Business

LCDS

No effort The disclosure on migration emerging from the Wikileaks cable appearing in the daily newspapers might well explain the lack of urgency on the part of the current administration to create the conditions for faster private sector jobs in Guyana. 

The growth of the local information technology sector and its application to other key areas of national development including health, education and the economy must be attended by a commensurate enhancement in Guyana’s capacity to service and repair equipment and to provide other forms of support to the sector, Chief Executive Officer of Starr Computers Mike Mohan told Stabroek Business in an interview earlier this week.

Experts analyst are predicting that the sustained surge in the price of gold will persist for some time to come.

Officials

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 423’s trading results showed consideration of $139,632 from 11,636 shares traded in 7 transactions as compared to session 422 which showed consideration of $15,539,530 from 240,942 shares traded in 13 transactions. 

GT&T’s negotiations with government preceding the recently tabled telecoms bill, aimed at liberalizing the sector, were both unsatisfactory and incomplete, according to the company’s Chief Executive Officer Yog Mahadeo.

Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud on Monday moved to allay industry fears of an imminent imposition of restrictions on the export of timber and value-added products from the sector triggered by a letter dispatched last week to business houses by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) informing them of export restrictions from September 1.

GT&T Chief Executive Officer Yog Mahadeo says that it costs the telephone company around $60M to replace 20,000 landline handsets every year.

Rice and Sugar Quite recently, Guyanese have been led to expect much from the rice industry. 

A Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) official who has been assigned to oversee the Bank’s administration of a fund designed to help prepare the region for the full and effective implementation of trade deal with Europe says the lack of qualified persons is a key impediment.

Except for complaints about the state of the country’s interior airstrips and the absence of navigation aids, the local aviation industry generally avoids the public limelight.

Business Cartoons

As we pointed out in an article that appears in this issue of Stabroek Business the local aviation industry has a reputation for discretion as far as its public profile is concerned though recent circumstances have more-or-less thrust the sector into the limelight.

Dogged by intermittent difficulties that have considerably delayed the completion of Guyana’s second international airport, the Ogle Airport Inc (OAI) the conglomerate comprising the five passenger and cargo aircraft operations and seven other investors appears to have hit yet another hurdle.

REDjet flights between Guyana and two destinations in neighbouring Brazil, Boa Vista and Manaus could be introduced from early next year.

For some years now President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been raising the spectre of nationalizing the country’s gold industry.

The Business Cartoon

Unilateral Sometime this year, the PPP/C administration will unilaterally pass a Telecommunications Bill that will see a change in the size, structure and management of the information and communications sector. 

For the second successive quarter, the performance of the Guy-ana operations of the Trinidad and Tobago-based Neal and Massy Group of Companies has been singled out by Group Chair-man Arthur Lok Jack for its contribution to the company’s overall revenue increase.