Gaskin urges value-added timber exports

The importance of value-added timber exports was highlighted yesterday afternoon by Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin as the Guyana Timber Expo 2018 opened.

A crowd of patrons ignored the bad weather and gathered yesterday afternoon at the Providence National Stadium’s tarmac, where the expo was officially opened by Gaskin, who, along with other speakers, stressed the need for increased value-added timber exports.

Giving the feature address in the stead of Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman, Gaskin noted that his Ministry fully supports the event and its objectives.

“This event is necessary and timely because I believe that somewhere along the line we seemed to have lost our focus as a people and country and have become the dumping ground for the world’s excess of cheap, low grade products and a lot of things that a few decades ago we could not have imagined we would be importing, we are,” Gaskin said, while explaining that it has been happening because the country has not developed its local resources in a way that would fully exploit the various value chains that are associated with the resource.