Business

A cursory glance at the Stabroek Business’ editorial focus over the past year or so will reveal that much of our reporting has targeted the issue of the fate of small and micro businesses in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 920’s trading results showed consideration of $57,632,338 from 719,635 shares traded in 14 transactions as compared to session 919’s trading results which showed consideration of $44,059,271 from 536,717 shares traded in 38 transactions.

Not widely known among Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries as a regional tourism haven Guyana, through its local Tourism Authority, has been seeking to position itself to draw greater international attention to what it has to offer once the menace of the Covid-19 pandemic recedes completely into the background.

What is being reported as a marked across-the-board rise in food prices in Guyana over the past several weeks is being proffered by international news sources as a microcosm of a wider problem as CNN, earlier this month used the United Nations Food Price Index to report a nearly 40% year over year food price increase with last month reflecting the sharpest monthly rise in average food prices in more than a year.

Last week’s announcement by the Chief Executive Officer of the Russian-owned aluminum producer RUSAL, Evgenii Nikitin that the company plans to pump US$5.2 billion into the upgrading of its bauxite plants in the Caribbean will be met with mixed reactions here in Guyana where the company has a 90% share in the Berbice-based Aroaima Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI),  the other 10% of the shares being owned by the Government of Guyana. 

The increased global intensity of the climate change lobby to reduce the recovery and use of fossil fuels will not be sufficient to restrain global oil demand which the International Energy Agency (IEA) says will recover to pre-pandemic levels late in 2023.

Weeks of sudden, sustained seasonal downpours commonly referred to as the ‘May/June’ rains continued for much of this week across the country, making clearer with each passing day the extent of the havoc that has been wrought on the agricultural sector and some of those who must depend on the sector for their livelihoods and their nourishment.

Guyana is positioned to benefit from the recent renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding between the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) under which the two bodies will continue to work together to engage multilateral funding sources including the Global Environment Fund to help ensure biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement in sustainably managed tropical forests through landscape restoration and expansion of natural protected areas.

The end of the Trump tenure has brought no end to the speculation regarding the future of relations between Washington, on the one hand and Venezuela and Cuba, respectively, on the other.

Even as the international community remains almost exclusively preoccupied with what has become the herculean task of forcing the Covid-19 malady into retreat, the United Nations is beginning to turn its attention to life after the pandemic, the June 14-15 second edition of the UN   Trade Forum seeking to provide a measure of global enlightenment on the actions needed for and inclusive and green recovery. 

The following series of articles is being published in order to increase the knowledge base of readers already involved in operating small businesses and wishing to broaden their knowledge base, or else contemplating such a step.

Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday June 17, 2021 Kitco is a Canadian company that buys and sells precious metals such as gold, copper and silver.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 919’s trading results showed consideration of $44,059,271 from 536,717 shares traded in 38 transactions as compared to session 918’s trading results which showed consideration of $34,565,616 from 433,150 shares traded in 21 transactions.

Even as early as a few weeks ago it seemed likely that the floods which, official reports suggest, have now reached proportions of a crisis sufficiently severe as to warrant an appeal for international help, could escalate beyond the control of the country’s fragile response capabilities.

We have traveled some distance from May 2015. This week’s disclosure of the Longtail-3 discovery has not, unsurprisingly, been attended by a comparable sense of national euphoria.

The current May/June rains and what is being reported as their consequential widespread flooding, damage to homes, displacement of families and loss of income due mainly to flooding of lands under cultivation and inundation of pasture lands has been the subject of investigation by the Stabroek Business for the past two weeks.

The recently released 2020 Annual Report of Caribbean Container Inc. has disclosed that the company returned an after tax profit of $220.2 million, a 117% improvement over 2019 as a result of which earnings per share reached $1.46 as against $0.67 in 2019.

Suriname’s political leaders have used the Tuesday June 1 opening of the country’s 2021 Energy Oil and Gas Conference to underscore the socio-economic returns that they expect to derive from its new-found massive oil and gas potential while emphasising the country’s intention to assume a posture of investor friendliness in the period ahead.