Way clear for small businesses to join Georgetown Chamber

Within a matter of weeks the way will be cleared for local small businesses to become members of the 122-year-old Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), a move that will help bring an end to the age-old complaint that the major business organizations in Guyana continue to be insensitive to the concerns of the private sector.

The disclosure, made to this newspaper by recently elected GCCI President Clinton Urling is in keeping with the commitment given by the Chamber during the installation of the new executive several weeks ago. Urling had said then that the key objectives of the chamber under his watch would be to pursue the institutional strengthening of the organization, to bring into being an Advocacy Committee and to create a window through which small businesses could become members.

GCCI President
Clinton Urling

Asked whether in the past the major umbrella business organizations had been guilty of ignoring small businesses, Urling told Stabroek Business that while that was “probably true” the chamber was now concerned with actualizing “a sincere and serious commitment” to help the small business sector go forward. Urling said the decision to admit small businesses as members would be ratified in three weeks’ time. He assured this newspaper that the decision was “a done deal” and that the ratification was only a formality.

Urling told Stabroek Business that even before the Chamber’s endorsement of the decision to allow small businesses to become members, the organization had been undertaking initiatives on behalf of the sector. He disclosed that the GCCI had been engaged with Caribbean Export to support the growth of the sector. Specifically, he disclosed that Caribbean Export had acquired the services of a small business expert financed by the European Development Fund to work with small businesses in various areas including the writing of business proposals. “One of the things which we intend to ensure is that small businesses actually have access to this facility and that they utilize it,” Urling told Stabroek Business.

Small businesses will pay an annual membership fee of $12,500, which, according to Urling, “will mean that the larger members of the GCCI will be subsidizing the smaller businesses.”

Urling said the chamber had already met acting Industry Minister Irfaan Ali and among the issues that had arisen at the meeting was the possible ways in which the Small Business Bureau, created under the 2004 Small Business Act, could contribute to the growth of the small business sector.

According to the GCCI President, the chamber has already engaged some small business organizations and the fledgling Women Entrepreneurs Network (WEN).