NOTWITHSTANDING the language barrier, the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of French Guiana yesterday inked an agreement to further trade and economic cooperation between the Caribbean region and the French department. 

The historic event was held in the Boardroom of the Private Sector Commission in South Cummingsburg.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the parties is geared at strengthening cooperation in areas of trade and investment promotion, international relations, exchange of market information, technology transfer, capacity exchanges and general economic briefing. All of this was done with mutual respect to the personnel, material, financial capabilities and resources of the two signatories.
With the intention of creating partnerships which extend further than the insular boundaries of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), President of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, Ramesh Dookhoo said that it has been the strategy of the entity he represents to not only establish and encourage partnerships with members of CARICOM.
He said too that the CAIC has sought to create ties with peripheries of the Caribbean basin, which include French Guiana and Suriname, and further with “those countries that are not a part of CARICOM.”
To this end, Dookhoo alluded to a similar MoU that was signed with entities in St. Maarten for which he reported that “progress on that has been going quite nicely.” He added that the CAIC has adopted a pragmatic approach in developing business between countries.
The CAIC President said that a challenge was extended to the French representatives to name 20 companies which they would be interested in doing business with, once those companies were included in the membership of the CAIC.
“We will disseminate that information to the 20 Caribbean companies who are CAIC affiliates, and in a practical sense, we are going to bring these businesses together whether based in French Guiana or France.”
President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of French Guiana, Jean-Paul Le Pelletier, through his translator, Simon Clerc, registered his gratitude to the CAIC for extending the ‘olive branch’ for trade and economic cooperation.
Le Pelletier said that the need for increased partnership between the signatories came out of a need to match the challenges coming out of the region.
He lauded the group as the only private organisation which operates at the regional level of the Caribbean and, in this light, added that the entity he represents is looking forward to an “increased relationship between Trinidad, Jamaica [and] Cuba through the CAIC.”
President of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, Clinton Williams welcomed the move saying that Guyana is a small market and “the possibility of expanding opportunities in Northern Brazil and the European Markets” are immense.
He added that the MoU could not come at a better time for the identification of key markets where both goods and services coming out of Guyana could be pushed.

(By Derwayne Wills)