Officials of various small and medium-sized business enterprises from across the region will meet in Guyana from November 14 -16 to participate in a forum being sponsored by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to explore possibilities for increased networking and ultimately expanding the levels of intra-regional trade.
A release from EMPRETEC, which will be executing the seminar on UNCTAD’s behalf said that small and medium-sized enterprises from several Caricom countries including Barbados, St Lucia, Suriname, Antigua, Grenada and Suriname are expected to be in Guyana for the forum.
EMPRETEC Manager Judy Joseph told Stabroek Business that the regional workshop, titled the Entrepreneurship Behaviour Challenge Workshop is patterned after the EMPRETEC methodology of inspiring high levels of motivation and development and the development of entrepreneurial competencies among business owners.
EMPRETEC is an UNCTAD-driven integrated, capacity-building programme that seeks to create sustainable support structures and the creation of mutually beneficial linkages among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), transnational corporations and trade support institutions
Joseph said that part of EMPRETEC’s focus during the three-day forum would be to explore the possibility of extending the EMTRETEC methodology in business communities with a view to strengthening SMEs. She said the local organisation was seeking to do this through high-quality training, business advisory services and practical business development programmes.
Noting that the workshop was the first of its kind to be undertaken in the region through the UNCTAD/EMPRETEC partnership Joseph said the programme will be facilitated by local trainers as well as trainers from Panama and the Dominican Republic.
Joseph said the staging of the regional business networking challenge forum as agreed upon following the success of a similar initiative in which UNCTAD partnered with Arlington Economic Develop-ment (AED) a United States-based, local governmental organisation that represents the business interests of Arlington County, Virginia.
