Guyana’s large informal business sector poses a serious threat to its formal private sector, through unfair competition at all levels. While data on informal businesses is not widely available, the Ministry has recognized that geographical disparities in the provision of Government services in Guyana may be contributing to the problem, by making it difficult for businesses in certain regions to conform with legal requirements.
As such, the Ministry established two business registration hubs in Lethem and Mahdia in 2017, and will seek to establish an additional four in 2018. This allows businesses of all sizes to register with the Commercial Registry each year in a timely and cost effective manner and thereafter operate legitimately. The impact of this initiative is best appreciated when one considers that for decades, the only option for businesses in Regions 8 and 9 to get registered was to travel all the way to Linden or the Essequibo Coast respectively, make an application, pay a fee, return home and then travel there again one week later to complete the transaction.
Repeated “considerable speculation” regarding the extent of business confidence in the country’s economy has prompted the Ministry of Business to conceptualize a Business Confidence Index (BCI) designed to assess the level of optimism or pessimism felt by business managers about their businesses’ prospects in the prevailing economy and which it says will help form the basis of business environment reforms.
