THE Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), in its little more than two decades of existence, has, over the years, managed to secure a number of noteworthy, large-scale investments; but truth be told, some people believe that the entity can do all manner of things, which in reality it cannot, but should be able to.

Last week, I hinted at a massive modernization drive which, among other things, will for the first time truly give GO-Invest, a more accurate picture of the investment climate in Guyana.
One Parliamentarian’s favourite term in presenting a new piece of legislation in the National Assembly is to say that it seeks to remedy the ‘lacuna’ that exists. One such lacuna existing at GO-Invest is that is continues to be hampered by the lack of access to ALL investor information across the country, since it is not the only agency in Guyana that deals with investments locally.

On many occasions, some investors entering into a venture locally have been facilitated directly through a Ministry, such as Agriculture or Natural Resources.
Investors could very well find themselves securing swaths of land to either enter into some extractive activity or farming or otherwise; but with GO-Invest absent from the equation, it cannot accurately present an illustration of where and what investments dot Guyana’s 83,000 square miles. It would in effect be able to give only a partial picture.

BETTER POSITIONED
But 21st century technology is coming to the rescue, and the recently appointed GO-Invest Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Keith Burrowes, seems to believe that, in the near future, GO-Invest will be better positioned to use the information that will be at its disposal in the execution of its mandate.

He sees a GO-Invest very soon in the future being able to map, for example, where the majority of overseas mining companies come from, and target potential investors more accurately.

With the investment arm of Office of the President (OP) operating on an annual subvention, finding ways to better promote investment opportunities in Guyana will have to come through more targeted and prudent approaches.

GO-Invest should, after all, be the primary contact for investors, and the agency liaising with Government agencies throughout the investment process.

The President has already approved the use of the technology, and Mr. Burrowes is looking to bring in specialised personnel. One of the things he is looking to have happen is to have an urgent, careful review focusing on concessions given to investors, whether local or foreign.

With the database operational, all investor information will be consolidated; and GO-Invest, according to Burrowes, would then be in a better to position to track how concessions have been impacting on the Guyana Economy.

With better indicators of how concessions have been able to aid businesses and their growth, it is only natural that concessions offered in future would be modified or tailor-made to achieve maximum results.

Another potential advantage of the consolidated information, which has been hinted at last week, is the ability to make informed predictions of the economies of local investors. A practical example lies in the gold mining industry. A number of large foreign companies operate in Guyana, and gold prices have been taking a battering on the international market of recent.

Should the economies of the those countries where those investors come from also show that, in future, this too is going to be taking a battering, then GO-Invest would be in a better position to decide on what kinds of risk it would want to take with such companies, particularly when it comes to concessions being offered.

Offering concessions is, after all, almost the same as taking tax dollars and handing them to a company in order to offset many of its startup expenses, so that that company can try and get some firm footing in whichever industry it is venturing into.

INVESTMENT TRENDS
Investment trends are another area that GO-Invest wants to focus on heavily using its consolidated investor information. With knowledge of the varying investment trends, GO-Invest officers will be able to better anticipate and facilitate certain types of investment.

Guyana has, for example, been attracting more and more diverse project proposals, and GO-Invest must be positioned to effectively deliver on its mandate of facilitating investments locally with mutually beneficial terms and conditions.

I have learnt that a proposal for setting up a very unique liquid processing facility was submitted last year, but this company wanted to produce liquids to be used in the medical field, such as saline solutions. This is a venture that has never been proposed or even assessed before in Guyana, and, as such, the proposal will require specialised attention when being assessed by GO-Invest.

As long as GO-Invest can be able to monitor the trend regarding the kinds of companies and businesses looking to invest in developing countries such as Guyana, that agency would be better prepared to confront head-on a wider gamut of proposals for investment in Guyana.

Renewable energy, for example, has been taking centre stage in recent years, as scientists and politicians argue the merits of Climate Change and its effects, perceived or real.

While a US$48 a barrel oil tag right now is certainly not going to kill the quest for other forms of renewable energy, it would most certainly push innovators to seek to deliver on cleaner energy at a cheaper cost, with even more varying methods.

Guyana has been attempting hydro power for a number of years now. A few years ago, there was renewed talk of wind turbines and solar power slowly gaining traction, but what happens when someone walks into GO-Invest with a proposal to build an ‘Atmospheric Vortex Engine’ that would supply more electricity than Guyana can ever imagine to use?

INVESTMENT ROOM
Another potential area of advantage that Burrowes is looking to implement in the not-too-distant future, with its pilot kicking off at its Head Office, is an Investor Room.

Think about an E-Library complemented with hard data at the fingertips of a potential investor looking to enter into a business venture.

Apparently, an untenable situation that obtained on many occasions when investors approached GO-Invest was the lack of information at hand both on the part of the investor and Government entity.

The Investor Room is intended to remedy this, as all information related to investments in Guyana, Investing in Guyana, Investment requirement in Guyana — think all things doing business in Guyana — is a tedious task when not incorporating technology, moreso without all of the required information in a central location.

One of the areas which frankly left much to be desired was that of the monitoring by GO-Invest, despite the fact that it had implemented a tracking system some years ago.

But with such a tool available to GO-Invest, the database will, no doubt, provide for a more accurate and detailed report on investments in Guyana.

The Economic Sector, the quantum of investment, number of jobs created, concessions, timeline dates, and a host of other investment details will now be of much more use to this Office of the President arm; and given the track record of the entity in recent years, it certainly has a bright future. Guyana, after all, is a country that has and continues to welcome Foreign Direct Investments.

The applications of a database of consolidated investor information are numerous, and, technically, are bounded only by the human imagination; hence the acquisition of specialised personnel at GO-Invest to primarily utilise this information can only bode well.

Comments and queries can be sent to garyeleazar@yahoo.com

(With Gary Eleazar)