With no short-term end to the long-standing problem of limited access to affordable financing to support the development of the country’s construction and engineering sub-sector in sight, the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) says it wants “a comprehensive overhaul” of the country’s financial system on the back of the emergence of an oil and gas economy that will bring with it a Development Bank that will help to overcome what it describes as “this key challenge” facing manufacturers.
In an article appearing in the GMSA’s recently released 2018 Annual Report, members of the construction and engineering sub-sector, mounted an assertive lobby for a revamping of the “cost and structure of financing” for the execution of projects in the sector. Noting that access to lending has, over the years, been constrained by a national financial sector dominated by six commercial banks, a smattering of insurance companies, two micro-finance lenders and two mortgage finance companies,” the article contends that what this has meant is that the burden of providing financing for manufacturing and other projects in the construction and engineering sub-sectors has continued to fall largely on the shoulders of those commercial banks with the largest portfolios. These banks, the article says, have become the critical option for the acquisition of capital investment for equipment purchase, land and building acquisition, re-tooling and expansion projects.
