Business

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 896’s trading results showed consideration of $194,765,851 from 2,238,868 shares traded in 19 transactions as compared to session 895’s trading results which showed consideration of $300,790,924 from 3,662,850 shares traded in 17 transactions.

Since the World Bank has as many tools as any other organization with which to fashion projections regarding the likely behaviour of the global economy, going forward, it is altogether reasonable to assume that some measure of seriousness will be attached to its projections and predictions in the period immediately ahead.

Still to emerge from a testing tunnel of tough times, including sustained underfunding and more recently, a drastic decline in business growth arising out of the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country’s small and micro businesses are likely to have to dig even deeper in the period ahead in 2021, based on the early signals sent during a recent interview with Chief Executive Officer of the Small Business Bureau (SBB) Dr.

It appears that the ‘rash’ of so-called pyramid schemes proffering unsustainable ‘business models’ where a handful of ‘first in’ participants feed off those who enter lower down the chain and which appears to have been taking root in Guyana have attracted the attention of other countries in the region, triggering reports in sections of the regional media.

The likely extent of the recovery in the Caribbean and Latin American economies next year will be insufficient for the region to reach the economic activity levels seen in 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says in its ‘preliminary overview’ of economies of the region’ for 2020.

Local interest in ginger may not be exactly marginal though the extent of its cultivation and use locally pales into insignificance when compared with other countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, not least, China and India, the world’s two leading ginger exporters, and Nigeria, reportedly Africa’s biggest consumer.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, late in December, issued an invitation to the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises to begin to submit applications for funding under government’s Grant Fund Facility which is available to qualifying businesses to help build capacity and increase business competitiveness, a recent report in a section of the Port-of-Spain media says.

If few astute analysts of United States foreign policy are likely to bet that the passing into history of the Trump administration will take with it the pressures that sit like a hangman’s trap door beneath the Maduro administration in Venezuela they would do well to think again.

                                               Kitco Market Data Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday December 31, 2020

Whatever predictions and projections we might have as a nation for the year that begins today, these cannot fail to take account of the formidable imponderables with which we are confronted.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 895’s trading results showed consideration of $300,790,924 from 3,662,850 shares traded in 17 transactions as compared to session 894’s trading results which showed consideration of $10,785,489 from 109,563 shares traded in 28 transactions.

If neighbouring Suriname may not have altogether stolen the international spotlight from Guyana in the oil & gas industry on account of its own significant discoveries, it has done an impressive job of grabbing a sizeable share of global attention for itself as an influential player in South America’s new-found position as the hemisphere’s most lucrative hydrocarbon hunting ground.

A US$30.4 million Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan recently extended to Guyana is intended to add weight to the country’s efforts to seek to maintain minimum levels of quality of life for vulnerable persons amidst the welfare-related pressures brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nikesha Punch is one of those scores of emerging local creative souls in the Guyana manufacturing sector whose opportunities to ‘parade’ their products on the local market, are these days, constrained by the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A beleaguered Caribbean Airlines (CAL), whose long-standing yeoman service to the regional air transport industry is often forgotten amidst the slew of service-related criticisms that it has had to face in relatively recent years is still far from putting its problems behind it.

As the international community continues to be preoccupied with pushing back the scourge of the dreaded COVID-19 global pandemic, the local food service industry could be a critical cog in the wheel of limiting the further spread of the virus locally, Director of the Government Analyst-Food & Drugs Department (GA-FDD) Dr Marlon Cole, told the Stabroek Business earlier this week.

Buoyed by its new-found profile as the pick of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries as a potential regional investment haven, Guyana is preparing to entertain the presence of the highly regarded Jamaican investment company, NCB Capital Markets Ltd.

While there is no definitive word regarding a timeline for the availability of COVID-19 vaccinations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced this week that it will be mobilising US$1 billion to help countries in the region acquire and distribute the vaccine.