For all the public hype and euphoria that had attended both official and public responses to ExxonMobil’s announcement of its first oil find offshore Guyana back in May 2015, there was always the likelihood that that response might collide with the consequences of the mounting climate change lobby that was beginning to assume ominously global proportions despite what had appeared for a while to be the studied indifference of the oil majors to the phenomenon.
Even as the Caribbean contemplates the mountain that it will have to climb if it is to ascend the lofty peak of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2015 to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all” – a new World Bank Report suggests that the region may be even further away from the realisation of those goals than might have originally been imagined.
With efforts by Caribbean agro-processors to maximise access to intra- and extra-regional markets falling short of expectations largely on account of failure to meet extra-regional consumer packaging and labelling requirements, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is taking steps to remedy this shortcoming by offering training in countries in the region whose export markets may be seriously threatened by below par packaging standards.
Tired, perhaps, of the fun and fashion associated with her accustomed circle of entertainment, local fashion buff Sonia Noel took a decision to mark her 50th birth Anniversary in an unaccustomed manner.
GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 936’s trading results showed consideration of $21,069,806 from 152,950 shares traded in 25 transactions as compared to session 935’s trading results which showed consideration of $3,943,252 from 12,187 shares traded in 12 transactions.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record we consider it necessary to point out what we believe to be the enduring tendency on the part of the Ministry of Agriculture to often ‘talk up’ the responsibilities of its portfolio without paying due attention to the actualisation of its undertakings, that is to say, seemingly being oblivious to the fact that – as we say in Guyana, ‘the noise in the market is not the sale’.
Demerara Distillers Ltd has announced its intention to invest US$100 million over the next five years in “several new areas to support the existing business,” even as it moves in the direction of “expanding the range of its current activities and products,” the company’s long-serving senior executive and current Executive Chairman, Komal Samaroo disclosed in New York on Wednesday.
Five successive oil discoveries by neighbouring Suriname up to this time will probably be more than sufficient to assuage any disappointment the country may feel over the recent disclosure by TotalEnergies that it has ‘drawn a blank’ in its latest search for commercial quantities.
The emergence of the Sunbeam Career Development organization in Guyana is one of the more recent indicators of the preparedness of young, innovative Guyanese to conceptualise then actualise initiatives that can be game-changers in the country’s search for skills that can help bring developmental aspirations to fruition.
Desnetha is one of a growing number of young Guyanese women who, while being keen to pursue formal academic qualifications remain anchored, as well, to entrepreneurial ambitions.
The recent announcement that neighbouring Venezuela and Iran have struck what reports say is an ‘oil swap deal’ under which Iran will receive Venezuela’s heavy crude from the world’s single largest known oil reserves in exchange for condensate from the Islamic Republic, would appear to be the most recent example of the ongoing efforts of the administration of President Nicholas Maduro to seek to extricate his country from the protracted and socially and economically crippling United States embargo that continues to stifle the country’s oil exports.
In what has become increasingly determined efforts by micro and small enterprises to work their way to the top of the entrepreneurial ladder, young aspiring business persons are communing with increasing regularity to ‘compare notes’ and exchange ideas with a view to incrementally gathering knowledge that can help consolidate their business pursuits.
Berbice-born Bobby Rama is one of many Guyanese who, having donned an entrepreneurial cap in the United States has made pleasing progress in the information technology sales sector.