Business

By Marilyn Collins Agriculture is a key sector in Guyana’s economy, accounting for approximately 32% of GDP, 30% of employment, and 40% of export earnings.

Tourism can be described as local or international travel for the purpose of recreation, leisure, religious, cultural, family or business purposes, usually for a limited duration.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Jamaica is tying-up loose ends on its move to repurchase US$2 billion of PetroCaribe debt from Venezuela after bond purchasers signalled their willingness to lend the Simpson Miller administration around US$1.5 billion, at sufficiently low rates, to make the deal viable, several sources have told Wednesday Business.

The Minister of Agriculture would do well to seek to determine with due haste the current status of the Guyana/Trinidad and Tobago land-for-farming deal that may have been struck over two years ago and under which private investors from the twin-island republic were to be allocated large tracts of land here to invest in mega farms.

Texila American University (TAU) which was launched in Guyana in 2010 and has now established campuses at the Critchlow Labour College in Georgetown and at Goedverwagting on the East Coast Demerara, is to set up a 150-bed hospital as one of the facilities at its third campus currently under construction at Providence, East Bank Demerara.

Commercial ties between Guyana and Suriname are on the threshold of being further strengthened as a well-known local entrepreneur prepares for tomorrow’s opening in Georgetown of a franchise of one of Paramaribo’s biggest and most successful private sector enterprises.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 624’s trading results showed consideration of $1,484,945 from 1,463 shares traded in 2 transactions as compared to session 623’s trading results, which showed consideration of $16,613,806 from 267,605 shares traded in 24 transactions.

At thirty, Abbigale Loncke is the co-proprietor of a developing enterprise born out of a combination of her own entrepreneurial disposition and what she believes is a fast-growing demand for a particular range of services in Guyana.

As Linden seeks to wean itself off what appears to have become a permanent image as a “mining community,” next weekend’s River Front Festival marks the latest initiative to send a message to the rest of the country that the town offers far more than memories of a once thriving bauxite industry.

Chief Executive Officer of Roraima Airways and veteran aircraft pilot Captain Gerry Gouveia has taken issue with remarks regarding the state of the local aviation sector attributed to Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson and published in the Stabroek News of June 28, 2015.

Consistent with the pronouncements made by the new political administration regarding a role for overseas-based Guyanese in the building of the country’s economy, Stabroek Business has been informed that an imminent public/private sector economic forum is likely to see participation from Guyanese in the a diaspora.

A matter of months shy of its 25th anniversary Stabroek Business has learnt that the widely popular GuyExpo event will not be held this year.

By Marilyn Collins Marilyn Collins is a former Director of the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department.

Regional and hemispheric investment promotion agencies including the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) met in Bogota, Colombia recently, to collectively probe best practices for country branding strategies likely to attract foreign direct investment.

Dr Tarron Khemraj and Joycelyn T Williams The high rate of unemployment in Guyana (around 40%) points to the urgent need for structural change to create new growth poles that allow for new sunrise industries to contribute to production and employment creation.

The pace of progress in discourses between government and the mining sector over concessions designed to enhance productivity in an industry weighed down by the effects of continually falling gold prices remains slow, the change in political administration notwithstanding, Administrative Coordinator of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) Colin Sparman has told Stabroek Business.

Tackling and effectively addressing the country’s domestic security challenges, one of the issues at the very top of the local Private Sector Commission’s (PSC) agenda of concerns has become an essential prerequisite to taking Guyana’s economy forward, newly elected PSC Chairman, Major General Norman Mc Lean has told the Stabroek Business.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – The St Lucian government is seeking to raise more than EC$13 million to settle outstanding liabilities for the compulsory acquisition of lands.

Kitco Market Data Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday July 09, 2015 Kitco is a Canadian company that buys and sells precious metals such as gold, copper and silver.

(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it would cut 7,800 jobs, or nearly 7 per cent of its workforce, and write down about $7.6 billion related to its Nokia phone business.