Several weeks ago this newspaper expressed its considerable disappointment over what it considered to be a missed opportunity by the private sector arising out of a competition by the regional business support body, the Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export) that resulted in winners from various other parts of the region being able to have their goods and services paraded at the recently concluded Olympic Games in London.
When we enquired from Caribbean Export as to why there was no Guyanese entrant in this particular competition, we were told that there was no reason why Guyanese businesses should not have expressed an interest since the information regarding the competition had been forwarded to Guyana. No one in the private sector could shed any further light on this matter.
We have noted that since then there appears to have been a heightened interest in Caribbean Export, a European Union-funded trade and development agency, which is supposed to help provide resources for skills and product development and capacity enhancement for business undertakings in Cariforum countries. In recent months there have been a few collaborative fora involving Caribbean Export and both the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA). This, in our view, is a far cry from what, frequently, is evidence of inertia and indifference among private sector umbrella organisations to making the most of opportunities to benefit from what regional and international support bodies might have to offer.
Evidence that communication links between Caribbean Export and the Guyana private sector are becoming stronger is now emerging in a manner that is pleasing to the Stabroek Business as indeed it should be to the entire local business community. We have learnt that 5 enterprises – Forest Products Development & Marketing Council of Guyana Inc, Guyana Agricultural Society, Brass, Aluminium & Cast Iron Foundry Ltd, Citrus Company of Guyana and TCL Guyana Inc—along with the GMSA have been awarded grants by Caribbean Export to pursue various projects. No less noteworthy is the fact that the proposals which resulted in the award of the grants were prepared by another Guyanese entity, JTW & Associates Management Institute. The awards, we are told, will, in some instances, amount to around £30,000 per project.
Caribbean Export certainly offers an important opportunity for local business entities to secure funding with which to develop one or another aspect of their enterprises particularly in circumstances where several years after the passage of legislation to enable the creation of a state-supported institution to help small businesses, nothing has been forthcoming up to this time.
We are told that Caribbean Export provides support for a range of activities that have to do with the development of enterprises including research and development innovation, advisory services, product and service development, marketing services, quality and environmental systems, promotional material, training, implementation of IT solutions, market research and packaging and design. Many of these are areas of serious deficiency in Guyana and if Caribbean Export provides an avenue through which local enterprises can secure either financing or technical support in order to improve their respective fortunes, then there is every reason why serious attention should be paid to the regional body and what it has to offer Guyana.
