Prashad updates Parliament on National Competitiveness Strategy
MINISTER of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Mr. Manniram Prashad, underscoring the importance of the National Competitiveness Strategy (NCS), told Parliament, Tuesday, of progress made in its implementation.
Speaking during debate on the 2010 National Budget in the National Assembly, he spoke about the implementing in 2009 and expectations for 2010.
Prashad said, following its inauguration in 2006, the Government entered into a US$27M loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Support for Competitiveness Programme.
He said, through the US$9M investment component, significant support is being given to a number of institutions which operations are central to the competitiveness of the economy.
“Under the auspices of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), which is chaired by His Excellency the President, a number of public-private dialogue bodies, in key thematic areas, continued their work,” Prashad told the House.
He said that is key to addressing important export competitiveness issues, such as standards and certification and efforts are also underway to re-launch, in 2010, the Export and Investment Promotion Council which was established under the Investment Act of 2004.
Prashad said such public-private groups and councils are critically required to drive the ongoing NCS procedure.
In addition, he said the groups succeeded, in 2009, to secure G$174.9M in grant funding from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) CART Fund to implement a single window automated processing system (SWAPS) for trade transactions.
“The system will link in licensed bodies, Customs and businesses, allowing for the electronic and single submission of licences applications, C72 forms and manifests. At a later stage, it would allow for other stakeholders, such as commercial banks and the Maritime Authority to be linked,” he said.
Prashad added that two other public-private groups have been operating successfully, with ongoing consultations and discussions and those groups, on infrastructure and energy, serve as “an adequate forum for constant Private Sector and Public Sector dialogue on key areas of the NCS.”

Progress
“It is through the guidance and follow-up of these groups that much progress has been made in areas such as the development of Lethem, with its commercial zone; the improvements in the Linden-Lethem road and progress in estimating electricity self-generation numbers in Guyana – a key variable in moving towards hydropower,” he outlined.
Other issues, including the state of the Demerara Harbour Bridge, the Amalia Falls hydro project, the reduction of commercial losses by Guyana Power & Light (GPL) and the dredging of the port Georgetown were in the forefront of the debate.
“The Private Sector is involved at all levels in these very important discussions,” Prashad emphasised.
He said, through 2009, the NCS Unit within the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce also focused its attention on delivering the groundwork required to establish and operationalise the Secretariat of the Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission.
Prashad announced that the Consumer Protection Bill 2006 was updated in line with international best practice into the Consumer Affairs Bill 2009 and the legislation was presented to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Trade and Investment and will soon be debated in Parliament.
“The enactment of this bill will complement the Competition and Fair Trading Act 2006, in providing Guyana with a sound and secure competition policy,” he explained.
Prashad said, under the auspices of that legislation, the Competition Commission, whose commissioners where re-appointed for a third year in 2010, obtained G$149.2M funding from the CDB CART Fund to engage key expertise to establish the secretariat, build the database and information system, run an awareness campaign and engage and train local staff.
He said Government has provided G$14.8M to support the establishment of secretariat this year.
Prashad informed that another key public-private body that falls within the NCS institutional framework is the Small Business Council (SBC), which was created through the Small Business Act, he reminded.
He said, throughout 2009, the SBC worked closely with the Ministry and funding was garnered to open the Small Business Bureau which will serve as the secretariat to that very important body.
Prashad said G$15M has been provided in the 2010 Budget to operate the bureau.

Procured
He also said that a key agency being aided by the Support for Competitiveness Programme is the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), to which key weighing equipment, worth G$26M, has been procured.
Prashad said, additionally, in 2009, a contract was awarded to Quara Argentina which started to provide training in ISO 9000 and 9001, to be completed in March.
It will also train in ISO 22000 and, in 2010, the communicaiton action plan will be implemented and a standardisation strategy developed, he revealed.
Prashad said GNBS is also working on a proposal to train firms in standards, with the aim of allowing businesses to implement them on their own.
He said one more imported agency being assisted by the Support for Competitiveness Programme is Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST).
According to him, in 2009, the institutional strengthening study and action plan at GO-INVEST, together with a comprehensive implementation plan for all the activities in it, were completed.
Importantly, the Deeds Registry is also supported under the Competitiveness Programme and, in 2009, a four-year action plan to modernise it was completed and approved as well as a comprehensive implementation schedule for all the activities, he reported.
Prashad said:“Through 2009, significant efforts were undertaken to complete the digitalisation of the business registration and incorporation system at the Deeds Registry in Georgetown.”
He said much progress was made, too, in linking the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to the Deeds Registry, as well as its sub-registries and this exercise is expected to be completed shortly.
Prashad said, last year, the G$148.9M Matching Grants Programme was embarked upon, with the aim of boosting exports of small and medium size enterprises and Mr. Yog Mahadeo from the Private Sector is leading it.
“In 2009, the NCS Unit continued its work to oversee the implementation of the strategy and key areas of engagement and support were provided in NCS areas, such as sanitary and phytosanitary standards, the agricultural diversification programme, aquaculture, forestry, the credit bureau, taxation, the works services group and telecommunications,” he stated.