SOME 25 companies from the United States have already registered for a Trade and Investment Mission to Guyana from May 10 to 14, 2016 and to participate in the series of meetings and briefings that will be held with Guyanese government and private sector officials.“This trade and investment mission is timed to coincide with GUYEXPO 2016 -Guyana’s national exhibition of products, services and trade and investment opportunities, which opens on May 12, and to the opening of which mission members have been officially invited. During the visit to Guyana, there will be meetings with top private sector and government officials, including Guyana’s Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin and representatives of the Private Sector Commission. Specific sector meetings will be arranged based on specific interests,” says coordinator of the mission, Wesley Kirton, in a press release. The mission, put on by Outreach Aid to the Americas (OAA) CARICOM Outreach Programme in conjunction with the newly established Guyanese-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc., is intended to serve as a platform that facilitates networking with the key stakeholders and high-level decision-makers in Guyana; an opportunity to meet these decision-makers face to face and present business interests and proposals in a one-on-one environment; source Guyanese products for export and introduce new products directly to local target markets; and network and build relationships with potential customers for joint-venture partnerships and investment.
A nation with under one million people, the area of Guyana is 83,000 square miles and is an attractive trade and investment destination providing opportunities for investment in gold and other mining, eco-tourism and related hospitality development, agriculture and agribusiness, clean energy, electronic assembly, low-income housing, financial services and the supply of consumer goods, raw material and equipment. Kirton says the mission has the full support of the Government of Guyana and the United States Embassy in Guyana, which have both indicated their support in writing and are assisting in finalising the programme of meetings and activities. The Guyana Consulate in Florida, he said, is also assisting with arrangements.
“We have also written to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat for a meeting, since many of the companies want to get a better understanding of arrangements for both intra-regional trade and preferential access to international markets for products from Guyana and other CARICOM member states,” according to Kirton, who is director of CARICOM Outreach Programmes at OAA and a founding director of the Guyanese-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. In February, the two organisations hosted an investment conference here which focused primarily on investment opportunities in the agriculture and agribusiness sector. CARICOM imports almost $5 billion (US) in food products annually and at that conference, the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) identified a number of investment opportunities in this sector.