A US$27M ‘Support for Competitiveness Programme’ was on Wednesday launched to enhance Guyana’s competitiveness and contribute to increasing the levels of private investment in and exports from the country.
The programme falls under the purview of the National Competitiveness Strategy (NCS), a press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said. According to Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh in many respects the competitiveness programme may have been pre-empted as the strategy encompasses financing a number of interventions and activities that will contribute significantly to advancing private investment and growth in some promising sectors. Singh said too that partnership and collaboration are essential.
The programme is designed to lay the foundation for what has already emerged as collaboration among stakeholders, Singh said. It also “articulates what some might denounce as an ambitious agenda for institutional reform but I believe it’s an agenda for realistic institutional reform” that will require focus and support from stakeholders.
The minister also acknowledged challenges such as climate change and high and increasing oil and food prices. He also noted the challenges because he believes it is “important to us as a country to reflect how we respond to them” and how the country can make gains from any opportunities that may arise.
Meanwhile, Singh said Guyana has “natural endowment that lends itself to large scale agriculture production…advantages that lend themselves automatically to opportunities such as going into bio-fuel production of ethanol without in anyway compromising food production.”
However, he said it is not only the government’s responsibility to find ways of mobilizing some of the challenges but the private sector’s as well. The minister said over the past two years there has been recorded growth in the economy of over five per cent. He said too investments in the Takutu and Berbice River bridge, the agriculture diversification programme, new and emerging sectors such as development in the Guyana Trade and Invest-ment Support programme which promotes birding tourism and aquaculture clearly show the country’s tremendous tourism potential.
The NCS is a result of the signing of a loan agreement between the government and the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank in March 2007. It will finance activities under the following components: strengthening the institutional capacity to formulate and implement the NCS, improving the business climate, enhancing investments attraction, export promotion and raising production standards and supporting private enterprise competitiveness for export development, GINA said.
According to GINA, stakeholders attending the launch included the tourism, industry and commerce ministry, Go-Invest, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards, the Investment Promotion Council, the National Advisory Council on External Negotiations, the National Competitiveness Council, the Small Business Council and the NCS unit.
