THE Private Sector Commission (PSC) will next week bring together stakeholders for a business summit on private sector development, which it hopes would help to ultimately transform the economic landscape of the country.

The summit will be held at the Marriott International Hotel on October 11 and 12, and will see stakeholders including the political opposition, donor agencies and civil society participating. It has gained support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of Guyana.

The two-day forum will be held under the theme, “Challenges and Opportunities for Business Growth and Expansion,” and will have opening remarks delivered by President David Granger.
According to the PSC, presentations will be made on key sectors of the economy, followed by a series of panel discussions on cross-cutting issues which affect those sectors. The objective is to encourage maximum participation from the stakeholder groups and organisations in order to ensure that the findings of the summit fully address any constraints that hinder development.

It is hoped that the findings will be used for the formulation of a Private Sector Development Action Plan, which when implemented will forge a pathway to national prosperity and economic development for all Guyanese.
Vice-Chairman of the Commission, Desmond Sears, said on Tuesday that at this point in time it is imperative that all stakeholders be brought together for a national conversation about Guyana’s private sector, which will feed into the wider society.

Executive-Secretary of the PSC, Elizabeth Alleyne, said it has been a very long time since there was a national forum of this type, where the PSC and other stakeholders come together with ideas that could be critically examined. According to her, the IDB was in full support of this idea which was initiated in March of this year. Government, when approached, was also in full support of the initiative.

The forum will focus particularly on the manufacturing, production, and tourism sectors, along with the emerging energy sector among others. During the presentations, the successes and constraints of those sectors will also be addressed.
At the end of the discussions, the PSC hopes to have a PSC development plan which could be incorporated into Government’s overall National Development plan.

The commission is also hoping that the summit will move beyond the usual “talk shop” and become instead “serious business,” It is hoping that major economic and developmental sanctions would come out of the forum. The PSC said it is fighting for the development of the country and hopes that the summit could find solutions to the society. The commission hopes also that all Guyanese ultimately become part of the national conversation.