THE Forest Products Association (FPA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) have agreed on what should be the policy on the export of logs and other forest products by concession holders and other stakeholders.
But the private sector bodies, led by the FPA, are calling for there to be more available raw materials for value-added processing.
The Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA) accompanied the FPA to a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture on Monday morning at the Ministry’s Boardroom.
Speaking at a Monday press conference held jointly by the PSC, FPA and GMSA, at the PSC’s boardroom, Senior Vice Chairman of the FPA, Khalawan (only name) said the letter that wood exporters received from the Guyana Forestry Commission “was indeed very frightening and challenging, because it would have taken a lot of impact on our businesses.
“We would like to report that the minister said that the letter was just an indication of concern that government had with the industry, especially suppliers in the local building industry. Having met with him, we have agreed that that restriction will not apply for the export of lumber, logs and other forest produce,” he said.
“We agreed with him also, as an action point, that we will stick to the current log export policy, that is to say only concessionaires will be allowed to export  logs that have originated from their concession,” he said.
Khalawan said the policy is being reviewed at the moment and it has the attention of both the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association and the Forest Producers Association.
“We pointed out to the minister that a lot of the concessions that people are sitting on are not productive. The minister agreed that he would look to the Guyana Forestry Commission to reallocate those concessions that are not being fully utilised or that are being under- utilised,” Khalawan said.
He said the stakeholders will engage in weekly meetings to engage the issues that are at hand.
“We agreed that we should host a joint sensitisation workshop and this would include the PSC and the FPA, along with building contractors, engineers, architects and timber suppliers and other end-users, and this workshop will look at current local timber demand and the specification and species usability that the industry needs,” Khalawan said.
Chairman of the GMSA’s Forestry and Wood Products Sub-Committee, Andrew Mendes, said that what came out of Monday’s meeting could turn what first seemed like a problem into an opportunity.
“We really need to have more processing and value-added in the country, so that Guyana could derive more benefits from its forest resources. We need to have more in-country processing. [But] the problem has been a restriction in raw materials on the local market,” Mendes said.
He said that through the joint participation of Government, PSC, FPA and GMSA, “we can actually work amongst ourselves to see what we could do to improve overall performance and benefits that we derive from our forest resources.”
He said that between the GMSA and the FPA, they are working on an agreed position on the future of the log export policy that will start in 2012, with a view to having government review the policy.
Executive Director of the PSC, Roubinder Rambarran, hailed the meeting between the minister and  stakeholders as a very successful one. He said it outlined where there are investment opportunities in the forest sector.
He said the issue of trying to establish local demand is a welcome initiative, since it would allow the industry to know what the local demand is, and this will guide stakeholders as to what percentage of their production can be exported.