THE GOINVEST and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) have joined forces to encourage and support local businesses in accessing Direct Assistance Grant Aid available through the Caribbean Export Development Agency (CEDA). At a joint media conference yesterday, officials of both agencies said that the collaboration is part of a drive aimed at ensuring that local businesses know about every opportunity that is available for financial and technical support.
“Not every business can meet the requirements of the banks or other financial lending institutions, so the aim is to ensure that our members know of other alternatives that are available, and that they make full use of these opportunities,” said Lance Hinds, Senior Vice-President of the GCCI .
CEDA is a Regional Export and Trade Investment Organisation of the Forum of Caribbean States (CARIFORUM), and is a beneficiary of the 10th European Development Fund.
The touted Direct Assistance Grant Aid from CEDA is part of a Regional Private Sector Development Programme which seeks to facilitate and enhance competitiveness and enhance innovation within the CARIFORUM private sector, Hinds said.
The Direct Assistance Grant Scheme provides financial support for  activities such as alternative energy, agriculture, agro- processing, creative industries, health and wellness, Information and Communications Technology, manufacturing, professional services and tourism.
The funding is available to businesses which are exporting goods as a current line of business or contemplating doing so as an extension of their current activity.
Businesses in the Caribbean are invited to submit proposals and get financial assistance from up to 70% of their entire project cost, or up to a ceiling of 30,000 euros.
The contracts are of six months duration, and the arrangement is that once the proposal is approved, the businesses will go ahead with their investments and then be refunded by CEDA.
Businessmen who feel that their businesses are eligible can apply for assistance by submission of their business proposals to CEDA.
The deadline for a current call for proposals is July 6, and both the GCCI and GOINVEST are available to assist local business people with the crafting of their proposals and their projections to make it easier for their application to be favourably received, officials said.
Speaking on behalf of GOINVEST, Export Promotion Officer, Ms. Uchenna Gibson, said that that agency will assist applicants in every way possible, including the postage of their proposals to CEDA ahead of the July 6 deadline.
Their proposals should reach GOINVEST by the 29th of June latest.
Hinds said that GCCI is urging all local businesses to take advantage of the opportunity within the CEDA EU supported project.
He stressed that they can get CEDA assistance, adding that nothing was impossible.
He said that GCCI intends, in the long term, to build the capacity of the Chamber and GOINVEST, so they can be able to help businesses understand what it is that it takes to prepare themselves to access support from CEDA type projects.
“Support in terms of how they write the project; how they do the accounting; how they do the financing;  how they project themselves in order to successfully win the approval that is required at the Caribbean level,” he said.
“They will be here competing against other Caribbean countries. So they have to ensure that that they put together the kind of project that will gain the attention of CEDA and therefore help them get the type of financing that they want.”
Hinds said that there will be another call for proposals in September, and that the programme itself will run until the end of the 10th EDF in 2015.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that we and our local business people need to make the effort to take advantage of the opportunity that is available.”
Information on the call for proposals, the guidelines and conditions for the Direct Assistance Grant Scheme, are all available on the CEDA website at www.carib-expport.com.