The private sector supports a proposal from Brazil to build and fund a seaport in Guyana along with paving a Linden to Lethem road as they believe that area could become the country’s economic hub.

Gerald Gouveia

Rodrigo Govedise, a representative from the Brazilian embassy told a meeting with members of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association last week that Brazil envisions building the port either in Georgetown or in New Amsterdam. The workshop’s agenda was to inform the group of the procedures necessary for doing business with Brazil. Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues confirmed that the issues are being discussed. She said no agreement has yet been reached and regarding the port, Brazil has not yet made a formal proposal.
Meanwhile, Private Sector Commission Chairman (PSC) Gerald Gouveia told Stabroek News that he is optimistic about the ideas as their fruition will be of great benefit to the country. However, he also cautioned that the country must be prepared to deal with the challenges that such development would bring. He said for a long time Guyana had always looked north for trade partners not realizing that an economic giant is nearby with a massive population of 200 million people.

Gouveia said one of the biggest issues Guyanese businesses are likely to face is consumer capacity. He said with a population of just over 700,000 it is inadequate. “We need to have consumer capacity for our manufactured products, food, services and the best way for us to get that is to bring people in,” he said. According to Gouveia when the bridge is finished “We need a super highway, a paved road that will come through the rainforest and come to a deep water harbour that would be able to bring container trucks to the deep harbour to meet container ships that will bring raw material for the manufacturing sector and bring the finished products back to the ports to go out to the markets.” He said the super highway would facilitate an array of traffic.

The PSC Chair also noted that an all-weather road would create a faster link to the rest of the Caribbean, making Guyana the gateway between it and South America. He said the country needs to prepare for challenges  to security as the road may bring with it “a new kind of culture even one of crime that may be alien to us so our security force must start to prepare themselves to meet those challenges.”

He also suggested that a revision of the school curriculum may also be necessary to include Portuguese. Meanwhile, he lauded the efforts being made to conclude a reciprocal agreement with the government of Brazil for the abolition of visas for businessmen. In the light of this Gouveia said, “we must proceed with haste in encouraging the development of that road and building the deep water harbour.”