– Global Seafood Distributors

By Zena Henry GLOBAL Seafood Distributors has praised Canadian company, Guyana Goldfields, for helping to develop its operations through good economic relations.
The local organisation threw support behind the mining company after it faced weeks of criticism regarding its obligation to local content.

Global Seafoods’ Chief Executive Officer, Alison Butters, told Guyana Chronicle that because of Goldfields, it was able to develop another product line which is its solar dried skinless, boneless salted fish.

“Guyana Goldfields’ commitment (to local operators) extends to building capacity in processing where Global Seafood Distributors adds value to the product as to satisfy its market. This allowed for a niche to be developed in the production of solar dried skinless boneless salt fish,” she said.

Butters said Goldfields held a variety of seminars for its suppliers, including an infomercial expo where local businesses that work with the company were allowed to showcase their products and gain product development guidance from local and international experts in the food industry.

Where her company is concerned, Butters said Goldfields is an example of embracing local content in a holistic way.

As a re-migrant entrepreneur operating in Guyana for some four years, she said that her company’s relationship with Goldfields has allowed for its expansion in a major way.
“Due to our initial opportunity, Global Seafood Distributors is working on expansion plans in both product development using local fish and meeting demands.”

Butters reiterated the mining company’s support for business growth.

“Goldfields’ commitment to local content and empowering small and medium-size businesses has allowed strategic growth and expansion into additional markets locally and internationally,” she said.

Butters noted that the collaboration with other companies such as Republic Bank and Citizens Bank has also allowed for strategic growth, especially when the support of a major market such as Goldfields, which has years more of service to Guyana, is involved.
Butters told Guyana Chronicle that despite claims of the Canadian company shafting its local content responsibilities, the company has caused Global Seafoods to become stricter with its product quality as the adherence to industry standards is demanded by the foreign investor.

Goldfields came in for harsh criticisms after the mining company decided to purchase its own plane to ease the more than G$1 billion tab it was raking in in air transport.
The company said it hired some four local aviation operators to operate more than 130 charted flights between 2015 and May of this year. To continue down this path, the company said would result in serious financial constraints on its operation and profits.
Some sections of the business community have determined nonetheless that the mining company should provide more for local operators if they are going to benefit from Guyana’s natural resources.

Others have noted that, like any other company, Goldfields must not be denied the right to cut cost to maintain its operation.
Goldfields said the decision to acquire its own plane was to ensure its economic viability and not to local operators.

The company will still be utilising local aviation companies for cargo transport, but the urgency at which workers have to be moved to and from its Aurora gold pit was a responsibility the company felt it needed to take on.