IN life, it is always a good thing for us to do some introspection from time to time, it helps to ;assess where a person is in life, where that person comes from, and with some fortitude, lays an outline for future decisions.

The Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) is by no stretch of the imagination a person, but it is a legal entity. It is the legal arm of Office of the President that is expected to be the primary contact for investors and exporters dealing with literally billions in benefits for Guyana.
Introspection at such an entity is of course a necessary cog in its wheel of growth; and recently GO-Invest undertook this very task and published its first ever bi-annual report spanning the period 2010 and 2011.
SHORTCOMINGS
That report documents clearly the progress that GO-Invest would have been making in its effort to promote exports and investments within Guyana, along with its contribution to the development of country during the period it reviewed.
The report is not in any way meant to replace an annual report, but was rather compiled with the primary purpose of information for mainly policy makers.
While a number of achievements were identified, shortcomings were also documented, as any worthwhile introspection exercise would unearth.
One glaring example that was highlighted and which GO-Invest’s Chief Executive Officer, Keith Burrowes, seems intent on arresting, is the lack of follow-up site visits once the entity would have completed facilitating a client’s portfolio.
In fact, the research found that of the clients surveyed, more than half complained that their business premises were not visited by GO-Invest officers. The clients surveyed issued a clarion call for GO-Invest staff to improve their follow-up with other government agencies on the developments of projects.
Burrowes has since sought to embrace technology to aid GO-Invest in this regard.
Those businesses that did report favourably in terms of a GO-Invest follow-up reported satisfaction with excellent engagements.
As it relates to follow-ups on Applications for Tax Concessions, while the majority of those that responded favourably were loud in praise, those that did not reported inadequate or poor service, something GO-Invest assures has been taken into consideration, and will be working towards vigorously addressing this.
CONTEXT
A review of the performance of the entity during the period in question, however, cannot be done in isolation from events that occurred on the international and domestic fronts. After all GO-Invest’s primary functions are the facilitation of investment into Guyana and the export of local produce and services out of Guyana.
As 2010 unfolded, the global economy was on a tentative recovery path from the financial crisis and resultant worldwide economic downturn that started about three years earlier.
Global output did expand primarily as a result of the performance of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India China, India and South Africa.)
Though slower than expected, the traditional major global markets did remain positive with a modest but continual upward trajectory.
As is trumpeted on each occasion a government official gets, Guyana’s economy did display resilience and maintained positive growth, however marginal, but not in isolation from the wider global economy.
INVESTMENTS
Investors in Guyana responded in kind, as investment expanded to 17.5 per cent of GDP in 2010, then to 23.9 per cent the following year.
The bi-annual report, GO-Invest’s introspection exercise, found that against the backdrop of uncertain global economic development and a resilient domestic front, the entity managed to deliver on its services provided, resulting in an increased value of investment facilitated.
In 2009 that investment figure stood at $22B, while by the following year this increased to $37B, and further to $49B in 2011, an impressive 122 per cent increase over 2009.
The total investment value at the time represented just over 500 projects in 2010, up from 473 in 2009, but fell to 370 in 2011.
According to GO-Invest officials, what this bit of data illustrates is a higher value per project in 2011.
Research on the performance of Go-Invest during its introspection period revealed also that the 7.6 per cent increase in projects in 2010 translated to a 46 per cent increase in job creation. This represents almost 3,000 jobs created as a direct result of the role played by GO-Invest, a creditable feat in most financial markets during the review period.
In 2011, more than 6,000 new jobs were created, and as in the previous years, the source of the investments was predominantly local investors standing at around 60 per cent of the year’s portfolio.
Of the 182 Foreign Direct Investment projects in 2010, just over half were backed by overseas based Guyanese.
Burrowes and his GO-Invest team has since interpreted this data to mean that Guyanese both local and in the diaspora recognise the potential that Guyana offers to the returns on their investment.
The GO-Invest officials, following an analysis of the data, has also found that given the downsides of the global economy, Guyana does in fact represent a relatively safe haven for investment dollars.
JOINT VENTURES
Reviewing the data unearthed through GO-Invest’s introspection exercise also reveals some interesting undertakings.
For example, the 2010 investment portfolio was represented by some 20 countries around the world, and while most were from North America, countries from as far as Ireland and Switzerland were collaborating in joint venture investments in Guyana.
By the following year, Foreign Direct Investments emanated almost evenly throughout Asia, Europe, North and South America.
Over the two years, joint ventures between countries as near and as far as Brazil, USA, Suriname, Canada, China, Sri Lanka, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago were all established.
In the coming weeks, I will be exploring more of what this strategic review of GO-Invest’s operations revealed, before moving on to the how the entity has put into use what it learnt through introspection.
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