Business

With just under a month remaining before the staging of the October 19-20 Florida International Trade and Cultural Expo (FITCE) it appears that barring an eleventh hour change in circumstances, the chances of a full-strength group of Guyanese small businesses participating in the event are slim.

Relieved at the end of the flooding that had seriously affected their farming pursuits for the better part of two years, the members of the Mocha Arcadia Multi-Purpose Agricultural Society are looking forward to returning to their land, livestock and livelihoods.

What had once been seen as the potential start of a new chapter in trade relations between Guyana and Cuba appears to have been soured by the Caribbean island’s protracted failure to liquidate amounts owing to a local miller for rice it purchased just over five years ago.

Almost certainly to the surprise of considerable numbers of Caribbean people, we are being told that the number of us facing “moderate to severe” levels of food insecurity now stands somewhere around 4.1 million.

There was increasing evidence of the continued acceleration of the social and economic recognition of cannabis at the recent staging of the CanEx Business Conference and Expo at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, Jamaica.

Perhaps with an eye to providing early momentum for the region’s undertaking to reduce its extra-regional food imports by 25% by 2025, Trinidad and Tobago’s National Entrepreneurship Development Company (NEDCO) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the country’s Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) which a report in a section of the Trinidad and Tobago media says is intended to raise the profile of local food production in the twin-island Republic.

Barbadian Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Business Development Sandra Husbands appears set to shove the country’s small business community to a more exalted level of entrepreneurial thinking in keeping with what she regards as some of the criteria for being part of the contemporary global business community.

Even as it reels from United States sanctions that have limited its revenue from oil exports, Venezuela, believed to have the world’s largest oil reserves, is beginning to send signals that it is taking halting steps towards resuming its place in the global oil and gas industry pecking order.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has just released a paper exploring measures which it says can help expose pay differences between men and women and identify the underlying causes of what is widely believed to be unjustifiable gender discrimination.

A more than half a century old United States economic embargo against Cuba came into the spotlight at the 77th session of the United States General Assembly when Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez launched a spirited salvo against the strictures imposed against his country in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this week.

Kitco Market Data Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday September 22, 2022

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 985’s trading results showed consideration of $25,114,649 from 99,471 shares traded in 33 transactions as compared to session 984’s trading results, which showed consideration of $38,402,700 from 105,930 shares traded in 30 transactions.

The Florida-based Guyanese/American Chamber of Commerce (GACC) is owed a considerable debt of gratitude for agreeing to stage an event at the Critchlow Labour College on Monday September 26, the aim of which is to better prepare local small businesses in the agro processing, craft and other sectors to access markets in the United States.

The aggressive pursuit by emerging Guyanese businesses of opportunities offered by major international markets to positively transform their entrepreneurial fortunes must be attended by both a clear understanding of the rules and regulations associated with marketing in an international environment, as well as “a sense of mission” on the part of aspiring Guyanese entrepreneurs, Secretary/Director of the Florida-based Guyanese-American Chamber of Commerce (GACC), Melinda Gordon, has told the Stabroek Business.

As Guyana’s skills needs continue to grow in response to the demands of what has become an oil and gas-driven development trajectory, the role of the state-run Board of Industrial Training (BIT) is assuming an increasingly important role in the wider national response to those skills needs.

Global oil and gas exploration is set to falter this year as the number of licensed blocks and total acreage fall to near all-time lows as the sector struggles to shake off the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing oil market crash, Rystad Energy research shows.

Venezuela’s numerous artisanal miners in the country’s El Callao mining region are coming under increasing pressure from the political administration in Caracas which, reportedly, has been ‘cutting’ deals with bigger gold mining operations that allow for a larger share of the returns from those operations to accrue to the government but progressively reduce the earnings of the small miners.

As the Maduro administration in Venezuela continues to find ways to circumvent Washington’s unyielding pressure on its oil industry, the authorities in Caracas have disclosed a collaborative initiative with Iran that seeks to put a brake on the huge financial losses which the country has had to endure on account of the US’ squeeze on the country’s economy.