Businesss Editorial
One of the facilities from which GuyExpo has traditionally benefited is a fair measure of hype among state media and the customary presence of the President at the opening ceremony – in which circumstance most of the `big wigs’ from the private sector usually put in an appearance – adds an additional measure of prestige to the event.
At the end of the pomp and ceremony, however, the event, given its professed significance to the promotion of goods and services produced locally, must ‘deliver’ and some of the very organizers of the event openly concede that the glitter that is apparent at the opening ceremony invariably conceals many of glitches that makes the event much less than it really ought to be. Sometimes, the planning becomes enmeshed in foul-ups associated with a mixture of bureaucratization and incompetence and, it has to be admitted, the sheer magnitude of the task of putting together such an event.
Of course, some of the functionaries associated with the event never seem keen to concede that things can and do go wrong – as if people don’t eventually get to know, anyway. We learnt, for example, that some of the major companies in the local manufacturing sector (see story on page one) did not participate in GuyExpo this year and that in one particular case – the case of Fibre Tech – the company was probably right to step aside since its application for booth space had been subject to a not inconsiderable level of bungling and, perhaps, worse and that in the final analysis, attempts to remedy the situation were badly mishandled.
We are told too that there is an increasing amount of worry over the fact that far too many ‘exhibitors’ who are in fact no more than itinerant traders are allowed access to GuyExpo where their imported goods – “cheap Chinese imports” according to a local manufacturer – are allowed to compete with locally produced goods. The craft sector, particularly, was openly fretful over this issue.
Over time, too, we appear not to have made up our minds about what GuyExpo really is. Is it a forum that allows for discourse and transactions between producers and buyers, principally overseas buyers and local producers or is it a sort of hybrid event – a huge national exhibition interspersed with a fair measure of entertainment? Of course there has to be some measure of allowance of relaxation, refreshment and even entertainment even at a business-oriented trade fair. But must we really have the irritatingly loud music and the overt presence of alcohol and the ticket booth environment – particularly on weekend nights – that leaves no one in any doubt that an overwhelming majority of the people who visit GuyExpo do so because of the entertainment value of the event.
Mind you, this newspaper would hardly have any complaint if GuyExpo were to serve its substantive purpose – the marketing of locally produced goods and services – while, at the same time, all and sundry were to have a good time. The problem is that we really need to know a great deal more about how GuyExpo impacts on the local manufacturing sector, particularly and that information has never really been forthcoming.
We need that information because the last thing we need is to find ourselves going through the motions of planning GuyExpo year after year without really being anywhere near certain as to whether, from year to year, it is or is not coming any closer to achieving its desired objective which, we assume, is creating new markets (and consolidating existing ones) for Guyanese products and services.
In our circumstances we need a GuyExpo, a platform for the promotion of our goods and services. We should not, however, be afraid of rethinking our approach to GuyExpo. One of the suggestions raised is that GuyExpo be held biennially to allow enough time for new products to come on stream; another, is that the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) needs to plan and execute its own trade show to which it should invite bona fide local manufacturers in sectors like wood products, art and craft, jewellery, beverages etc. only and that the trade fair should be a strictly ‘no go’ area for the itinerant traders with the cheap Chinese goods and that we really need to understand that while there is nothing wrong with entertaining visitors to the trade fair, serious businesspeople are unlikely to turn up at an event where you have to push and shove to get a ticket and where the decibel level of the music is so high in some areas of the venue that a normal conversation is impossible.
The problem with the present GuyExpo is that one of the primary barometers by which its success is measured is the numbers of people who attend the event and since the vast majority of the attendees will probably stay away if the music and the bars are absent, then those become critical to the ‘success’ of the event.
GuyExpo itself has to arrive at an understanding of what it really is and what it really seeks to do and its planning and its execution, next time around, must take greater account of its real purpose. It should not be afraid to jettison those elements which do not rightly belong at a trade fair and more importantly it has to be prepared to work harder to infuse the event with those elements that rightly belong there.
In this context the point should be made that this year the event seemed able to attract far too few overseas businesses in which circumstance one has to assume that for at least some of the exhibitors, the outcome fell short of expectations.
Finally, whether government, the private sector or both, whoever organizes GuyExpo in the future needs to understand that putting together all of the elements of a national trade fair and exhibition requires a great deal of time and attention since there are several dimensions to such an event. In short the practice of putting together a Committee a few months before the event and saddling that Committee with a task that can be physically and mentally taxing really makes no sense whatsoever.
