Business

The declining fortunes of the gold industry may be a source of concern for Bartica but that is not to say that as far as enterprise is concerned the community is not weighing its options.

Four years after the Stabroek Business reported on the introduction of the Coffee Bean café & Eatery, its proprietrix Narvini Dewnath is full of satisfaction with the strides the facility has made and highly optimistic about its future.

Up to earlier this week, the Government of Guyana had not provided a response to the warning from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the much-vaunted PetroCaribe Agreement between Venezuela and several Caribbean countries—under which the latter receive oil from Caracas under various concessionary arrangements—might stand imperiled in the face of plummeting global oil prices.

The recent statement issued by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on the subject of the political impasse confronting the country and the attendant counterproductive outcomes is significant insofar as, among other things, it reflects the assertion by at least a section of the business community of what it sees as both a right and a duty to comment publicly on an issue of national importance.

Perhaps the main challenge facing Bartica at this time is the decision it must make as to whether it will remain a kind of geographic signpost, the gateway to the interior or whether it will make a name for itself as a viable and attractive community.

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Director of the Food and Drugs Department Marlon Cole may have been short on details regarding what he told this newspaper was the planned creation of a new complex to house his department.

Safraz Khan’s Amazon Bioplastics, which will see the production of biodegradable plastic for various applications, has targeted January next year as the time for commencing operations.

Commercial banks in the region are providing less than robust financial backing for private investment and, by extension, contributing to the overall underperformance of business in the region.

By Mohamed A. El-Erian   LAGUNA BEACH – The US dollar is on the move.

Stock market updates

Last weekend’s persistent bad weather almost ruined Bartica’s first ever product and service expo, though a lucky break in the weather on Saturday caused the local Chamber of Commerce to succeed in making its point about the significance of the event and more particularly, of Bartica.

(Prepared by the Guyana Marketing Corporation and published by Stabroek Business as a public service)*Prices only represent the average Wholesale Farmgate and Retail Prices at the above mentioned markets and are NOT prices set by the Guyana Marketing Corporation or Ministry of Agriculture.

Chunilall Baboolall may be one of Bartica’s most accomplished gold miners but he is also among those who are acutely aware of the vicissitudes of the industry and of the need to guard against the imponderables that are characteristic of its behaviour; like the current fall in gold price.

Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has said that government is positioning the local rice industry to emulate its Asian counterparts by embarking on a regime of diversification that would yield a range of high-quality byproducts that would be good enough to hold their own on western markets.

Mohammed Gafoor lshmail is one of several Guyanese entrepreneurs who have hedged their bets, returning to Guyana to set up businesses over the past decade or so after having made earlier successful investments in their adopted countries, mostly in North America.

Two stories published in this issue of the Stabroek Business address the issue of buying local, albeit from different perspectives.

With local fruit already in considerable demand on both the domestic and export markets the beauty industry is beginning to make its own additional demands on the sector.

(This is an edited interview between the Chief Executive Officer of Massy, Gervase Warner and Stabroek News on October 29th.