-calls for trajectory to be maintained  to ensure a dynamic private sector
THE local private sector, according to Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Mr. Ramesh Dookhoo, has undeniably re-emerged in a sustained way and the progress to date has positioned the sector in a current place where it is confident in the prospects for business and is well poised for more rapid growth.
“It is up to us as a country to maintain all of its essential ingredients intact in order to keep it dynamic and nurtured into the future,” he told a gathering of stakeholders at the PSC’s 19th Annual General Meeting Thursday at the Pegasus. He stressed that as an integral part of development, the private sector needs to focus on the creation of a few Business Development companies in Guyana.
“We see massive new investments taking place in mining, telecommunications, and services. But we still need a bigger push in investment rates. These are dependent on reducing and mitigating the comparatively high country risk perceived for Guyana due to politics and perceptions of crime,” Dookhoo said.

BIG PUSH
The PSC Chairman stressed that behavioural changes of all stakeholders in Guyana is what is needed to ensure that the momentum behind the reemergence of private business accelerates and becomes a “big push” forward.
He said, “Given recent trends, the private sector is on the cusp of a take off to fulfil its true potential as the engine of growth in Guyana’s economy. The policy changes in Guyana over the years have been focused and targeted to facilitate this current and unprecedented level of confidence that the private sector has in exploiting business opportunities in Guyana.”
Dookhoo explained that the private sector has come back from its relative lack of importance in the economy of the past and is currently “definitively established” as the true engine of growth in Guyana. 
He pointed to the fact that with the increasing levels of local and foreign investment, the private sector is growing exponentially and has increasingly assumed a dominant position in the economy. 
“It has been just over twenty years since the country moved towards market-oriented policies which have spurred the growth of the private sector and moved the economy from one dominated by state-owned enterprises to one in which the majority of investments are made using private capital,” Dookhoo said.
He made it clear that the progress made over the last years must not be underestimated, especially the advances in improving the regulatory and incentive framework for business to grow in Guyana.
“We must not forget the hard work that all of us as stakeholders expended in the process. We did so, because we understood that this framework was and remains the premise for business to flourish,” he posited.
To that end, he stressed that the assertion of some cynics that all that has happened for business in Guyana is the enactment of new laws is one that must be dismissed.
The PSC Chairman maintained that it is a well established economic fact that for private business to flourish, investors must feel that their investment is well protected by law, and that the rules of the game are clear and well defined.
Dookhoo added that the government’s commitment to the private sector’s role in the economy is quintessential and is evidenced by the number of state-owned enterprises which have been sold to private investors and to the increasing willingness of the government to engage the private sector in policy formulation and implementation.

EXPANDED ROLE
According to Dookhoo, the role of the Commission has been expanded since 2006 when the PSC entered into a partnership with the government to implement the National Competitiveness Strategy. 
He said, “This partnership has led to the formation of several Public-Private Dialogue bodies on which the Private Sector Commission participates as equal partners of the government in prescribing measures to improve the competitiveness of the economy.” 
The said measures, he explained, are all geared at facilitating and enhancing the role of the private sector in the economy of the country. 
“While the private sector has grown rapidly and now dominates the economy there is much room for its further growth and the National Competitiveness Strategy provides the medium through which the sector can further catalyze the growth of the economy,” Dookhoo said.
He stressed that this partnership has produced results at the regulatory framework and on macroeconomic policies.
The PSC Chairman called for a recognition of the fact that the business community presently enjoys one key foundation of private sector development, that of macro-economic stability.
“With the continuous growth in private investments complementing those in the public sector, Guyana’s economy remained on a steady growth path, even during the recent global recession…the country continues to experience macro-economic stability. There are great business opportunities in tourism, in services in agro-processing, information technology,” Dookhoo posited.