Neal & Massy to partner with other business houses

A business plan for the creation of a major multi-stakeholder private sector investment in the country’s agricultural sector could be completed within a few days and critical decisions with regard to moving ahead with the investment are likely to be made over the next month, Chairman of the Agriculture sub-committee of the Private Sector Commis-sion (PSC) Beni Sankar told Stabroek Business earlier this week.

Beni Sankar

The plan for what is likely to be one of the largest single private sector investments in the agricultural sector outside the rice sector revolves around an envisaged joint venture partnership between Neal and Massy which has already acquired a 10-acre agricultural operation at Mon Repos on the East Coast Demerara and around twenty private sector companies including some major players in the business community.

Sankar who told Stabroek Business that he was currently working on the business plan with the support of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) and other private sector groups and individuals, said that several of the companies have already agreed in principle to examine the business plan. He said that Banks DIH Ltd and Demerara Distillers Ltd could be among the major companies involved in the joint venture exercise.

The likely private sector venture in the agricultural sector comes in the wake of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s persistent urgings that the private sector pay a greater interest in the agricultural sector.

Sankar told Stabroek Business that while there was “much evidence of private sector interest in agriculture”, potential investors were not unmindful of the challenges associated with the sector including identifying and servicing markets, the need to invest in the technology linked to improving the efficiency of the sector and the importance of enhancing product quality in order to secure and sustain export markets.

Sankar said that he believed that government was “very focused” on agriculture and that contrary to views expressed in some quarters the private sector, too, was not indifferent to the potential which the sector holds.

Meanwhile, according to the PSC agriculture committee Chairman the success of the proposed joint venture could see the private sector replicating this approach across the country, a move which would put potential investors “more directly in touch” with farmers in their communities. He said that the notion of a joint venture involving Neal and Massy, on the one hand, and a private sector conglomerate, on the other, was also ideal in the context of “sharing the investment risk,” a concern that was likely to inform the outlook of the potential investors in  the project.

Describing the new joint venture proposal as “innovative and ground-breaking” Sankar said that the operation will be run by trained professionals in the fields of agriculture and business.