– under Micro and Small Enterprise Development (MSED) project

SOME 199 loans and 545 grants have been issued through Guyana’s Micro and Small Enterprise Development (MSED) project which began in 2013.

The Micro and Small Enterprise Development and Building Alternative Livelihood for Vulnerable Groups initiative also saw over 3736 persons being trained while grants and loans were issued at the cost of G$163M and US$3.2M respectively.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Business in collaboration with the Small Business Bureau (SBB) hosted a closing ceremony at the Herdmanston Lodge to mark the occasion.
Several small business owners were in attendance as well as project partners such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry Limited (GBTI) and Republic Bank.

In the project, two areas were identified as major constraints to small business development which were access to finance and business development services which were each allotted with portions of funds.

With this in mind, priority sectors were targeted which included fruits and vegetables; aquaculture; ecotourism; wood processing; bioethanol; and business processing outsourcing.

In his feature address, Business Minister, Dominic Gaskin said the MSED project addresses the fundamental needs of businesses such as financing and training and the intensification of the services of the SBB.

“I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the beneficiaries of this programme and I can tell you that this programme definitely matters. It is easy to ignore those whose needs may seem trivial in the grand scheme of business but when you actually see what some persons have managed to achieve, since you would have given support, it drives home the importance of programmes such as this one,” he said.

The minister also alluded to the recently hosted Guyana Trade and Investment Exhibition (GuyTIE) which he said facilitated the exposure of eight small businesses which participated through the SBB.

SECOND TO NONE
“Their display and their products and packaging were second to none. I watched them engaging visitors in a very professional manner and I knew right away that whatever support that they would have received over the years, they certainly utilised it effectively,” Gaskin said.

With the country set to become a major oil producer, Gaskin said that Guyana must begin to build local capacity if it is to maximise on the industry as economic growth cannot come without economic development.

“In areas where we have a fighting chance we must put up a good fight. And the good fight in this case is not about punching and kicking and screaming. It is about meeting the stringent requirements of large international operators and being able to compete against the established suppliers. This means that small businesses today need to ensure that whatever they produce or whatever service they provide, needs to meet the appropriate international standards and that they’re businesses are efficiently managed,” he said.
The minister added that this responsibility also lies in the hands of the SSB which is tasked with building capacity within the sector to become internationally competitive and export ready.

At the same time, he thanked the other project partners involved such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); the Small Business Council (SBC) and the SBB’s project team
SBB Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Lowell Porter stated that the MSED programme addressed access to finance.

WORK TO BE DONE
However, he noted that when it comes to accessing loans, the SBB’s clients face a rejection rate of some 50 per cent which the bureau will work to improve in the future.

“It tells us that going forward the thing to do is to prepare our small businesses in a way that they can become more bankable. They need to start keeping records; they need to start understanding what their business is all about because we want to move them up the ladder. We don’t want them to be in small businesses forever,” he said.

Meanwhile, referring to the GuyTIE event as well, he stated that through the initiative, clients of the SBB have been invited to display their products in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines at their expo in October.

Senior International Consultant, Guillermo Bolanos presented on the effectiveness of the programme and the improvements needed.

Speaking to the positives, he commended the government and other involved parties for the works done to provide the best training possible to small businesses while simultaneously reaching out to businesses in all regions of the country.

Being that Guyana is a large country with a small population, he highlighted that it takes a larger budget to achieve the objectives and his observations show that the faith of people in the government, in this regard, has improved.

However, he pointed out that Guyana still ranks at 121 out of 140 in the World Economic Forum’s (WEFs) Global Competitiveness index and 126 out of 190 nations in doing business.

In addition, with some 70 per cent of Guyana’s graduates still leaving the country contributing to high levels of brain drain, Bolanos recommended that university students be involved in the programme to thwart the trend.

He also suggested that the programme enable banks to develop a small business loan programme and that Small or Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) be inserted into value chains.