Senior Vice President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Clinton Urling has told Stabroek Business that the importance of the Guyanese diaspora to the country’s development may well warrant the establishment of a state institution, “perhaps, even at the level of a Ministry,” to administer relations with the overseas-based Guyanese community.
“It ought to be clear to government by now that Guyanese residing in the diaspora play a vitally important role in the development of our country.
They are linked to the economy and to the welfare of a significant section of the economy in several significant ways and I believe that the existing administrative arrangements to properly manage and strengthen those linkages need to be strengthened significantly.”
According to Urling while figures concerning the value of the contribution being made to the economy by overseas remittances are unreliable, it is clear that the extent of that contribution amounts, at best, to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. “The extent to which remittances from the diaspora have a bearing on employment creation, consumer spending power and by extension, on wholesale and retail trading and the economy as a whole can be measured in the extent to which the media has been expressing unease over the anticipated reduction of remittance flows arising out of the economic downturn in the United States,“ Urling said.
Urling told Stabroek Business that he felt that official concern over the likely impact of reduced remittances was likely to be “far more serious” if reliable figures were available on the “the remittance dependence of the Guyana economy.” He explained that while the relevance of remittances was measured mostly in the extent to which it contributed to spending power, an analysis of the Guyana economy without remittances “or even in a condition of seriously reduced remittances” was likely to reveal a deeply worrying picture.
“When we consider the fact that a high percentage of recipients depend on remittances to meet their most basic needs one cannot help but be concerned over the prospect of a drying up of remittances,” Urling said. And according to Urling the establishment of a Ministry responsible for Diaspora Affairs would better position the government to “track” the investment potential that exists within the diaspora as well as to help create “import/export linkages” between the local private sector and Guyanese and Caribbean businesses, particularly in North America. The GCCI Senior Vice President told Stabroek Business that while some of these initiatives were already being taken on a small scale, the extent of the importance of the business and investment potential of the diaspora dictated that they be pursued on a more “structured” basis.
“We need, for example, to create permanent relationships with Guyanese and West Indian Chambers of Commerce, business groups, media houses and the various Guyanese Associations across North America and Europe. Through them we can come to a better understanding of the extent of the investment potential in the diaspora as well as the potential markets for goods and services produced in Guyana. Unfortunately, there is no structure in place to address these issues at this time.”
Asked whether he felt that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its diplomatic missions abroad could serve as a conduit between government and the diaspora, Urling said that he believed that the significance of the diaspora to the Guyana economy and to the country’s development required “a specialized effort by a specialized agency.” He said that while, “conceivably, some missions might play a supporting role, he believed that the task of reaching out to the diaspora was not necessarily a diplomatic pursuit.
Meanwhile, according to Urling a specialized agency for cementing relations with the diaspora can also help to identify and recruit trained Guyanese residing abroad to undertake assignments at home in areas where skills are scarce.
“My own view is that we are likely to find that there is no shortage of willingness among highly skilled Guyanese in places like the United States, Canada and Europe to give periods of service to Guyana if the proper arrangements can be made. Some of those areas may include medicine, information technology, education, and various areas of engineering. If we can create a structure through which we can establish relations with these trained and qualified people we may well find that we can have important projects completed at less than the cost that obtains when we recruit non-nationals,” he added.
