– GCCI says lots of networking opportunities to be explored, MoU to be signed

FIFTEEN Guyanese companies are set to travel to Aberdeen, Scotland for the upcoming Offshore Europe, oil and gas conference and exhibition, which will run from September 3 to 6, 2019.

Founded in 1973 as Offshore Scotland, the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Offshore Europe is a biennial conference and exhibition that takes place in Aberdeen, Scotland.
The event focuses on upstream oil and gas production and has grown into one of the largest events of its kind in Europe. The event attracts visitors and exhibitors from around the world, 108 countries were represented at the 2015 event.

Guyana will, for the first time, be part of the prestigious conference, said President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Nicholas Boyer during a press briefing on Monday. The trip will be facilitated by the GCCI and the British High Commission.

He reiterated that 15 companies have confirmed their participation and from those companies, there will be a total of 20 delegates. “With the British High Commission and our high commission in the UK (United Kingdom), we worked with Valiant Media and we came up with a way to represent Guyana there…It was a bit of a logistical challenge to fly to the UK, but it is good to see interest from Guyanese companies despite the logistics and cost to get there,” said Boyer.

In addition to the conference and exhibition, Valiant Media and both high commissions have arranged events which will give local companies the opportunity to network. According to Boyer, foreign companies often try to research on Guyana but there are no industry reports and other information which can be accessed, so the GCCI will provide information through networking. “For networking when you get face-to-face interaction, companies can directly ask you questions…we will build the relationships so that companies can say they want to provide their product and service to Guyanese,” said the GCCI president.
Networking will also give Guyanese companies an opportunity to pitch their products and services to foreign investors.

British High Commissioner to Guyana, Greg Quinn echoed the sentiments of Boyer, noting that the expectation is that the relationship between Guyana and the UK will jump to another level.

The relationship between Guyana and Scotland is already strong, particular the relationship between the GCCI and Aberdeen. Last November a mission from Guyana, which included public and private sector stakeholders, visited Aberdeen. Discussions coming out of the visit were focused mainly on education, trading and skills development. The effort was reciprocated when Lord Provost, Mayor of Aberdeen; Barney Crockett and Scotland’s Energy Industry Council visited Guyana. “The trip to Scotland is the latest step in what has been a relationship which was built over the last few months,” said Quinn.
Outside of the initial intention of the upcoming visit to Scotland, the GCCI and the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber Of Commerce will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Boyer said the signing of the MoU will demonstrate the commitment to building a stronger relationship. “We don’t want to disclose anything about the MoU, we will save it until the launch…we do not want to preempt anything,” he said. The GCCI has similar MoUs with the Federation for Indian Export Organisation, the Chamber of Commerce of Cuba and the Chamber of Commerce of Ghana.