WITH respect to in-country processing and value-added manufacture of forest products, foreign companies, such as Bai Shan Lin and others, have made commitments to this Parliament approved national policy and Guyana is holding them to those commitments.Re-emphasising this, Commissioner of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) James Singh added that later on in this year, 2015, Guyanese should see some significant progress towards compliance.

In a recent report, he said that with respect to operations by locals, Guyana generally has a long way to go even though the signs were very encouraging in 2014.
He disclosed that local value-added operations encompassed a wide range of activities, starting with basic lumber and moving to the high end flooring joints and other building components.
“What we have seen in Guyana is an increase in the number of portable mills and an increase in the quality and quantity of sawn lumber but obviously we want to move further than that; we want to target the high end flooring market, other building components.”
He said that although some companies and some individuals have been moving in that direction there was need for more much more to be done.
He, however, acknowledged that the high cost of energy, skills shortages, unreliable supply of raw materials, shipping bottlenecks and a seeming reluctance by some producers to use the lesser used species (LUS) in their production activities continued to be major constraints.

“We have plans later on this year to seek funding for a value-added training school where we can train not only the larger companies’ employees but also Community Forestry Operators, etc.” – Commissioner of the Guyana Forestry Commission

HIGH ENERGY COST
He said that the high cost of energy was a major bugbear making local producers uncompetitive on the world market.
With respect to unreliability of supply, he stressed that if locals are going to invest in value-added equipment they have to be assured of an adequate supply of raw materials and therefore there has to be an improvement from the production of 30% that is the current level.
“This is so that people can have confidence that if they are going to manufacture a product they can guarantee that there are markets outside because they have an assured supply locally,” he said.
The GFC was trying to address a serious skills shortage for value-added activities in the forestry sector by way of training.
VALUE-ADDED TRAINING

“We have plans later on this year to seek funding for a value-added training school where we can train not only the larger companies’ employees but also Community Forestry Operators etc.”
He identified shipping bottlenecks as a serious constraint to value-added production in the forest industry.
He said: “Last year for example much more could have been exported in sawn lumber and logs but there were simply not enough ships and enough containers to go out.”
“So for our local operations, we still have some way to go. These are some of the constraints that we have to overcome.”
He disclosed recently that the GFC has impressed upon Bai Shan Lin and all other foreign and local companies, the need to accelerate meeting their stated commitments with regards to the manufacture of added-value forest products.

(By Clifford Stanley)