Go-Invest to conduct study for BPO expansion in Guyana 
CEO of Go-Invest, Dr. Peter Ramsaroop
CEO of Go-Invest, Dr. Peter Ramsaroop

THE Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) is preparing to conduct a major study in Regions Two, Three, Five, Six and Ten to understand the workforce capacity and assess the regions’ potential for the expansion of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) outlets in those regions.

In an exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Go-Invest, Dr. Peter Ramsaroop, noted that there is significant room for expansion of the BPO sector, which primarily involves call centres that do outsourcing work.

“We’re putting some emphasis on better understanding what we have and how we can help the back office process and attract the Fortune 500 clients to Guyana. We’re undertaking a major study to understand better what are the potential job opportunities, and in which areas we can concentrate on to drive consistent employment for our people,” Dr. Ramsaroop related.

The study is being funded through Caribbean Export Development Fund.

The plans for the study comes following some $2 billion being approved in the 2022 budget to cater for the construction of two call centres in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a business practice in which an organisation contracts with an external service provider to perform an essential business task. Over 1,100 additional jobs at call centres were created in Guyana since August 2020 through growth in the BPO industry, while an additional 1,500 new jobs by 2023 are anticipated.

“We believe that the back office processing, the call centres, is a significant expansion for Guyana and we have a lot of interest for Fortune 500 companies that want to outsource their work to some of the back-office providers in Guyana. We already have Amazon, and Uber, and we believe we can get other big companies in the world outsourcing their back office to Guyana operations. So we are concentrating on that sector,” Dr. Ramsaroop said.

Some of Guyana’s current top BPOs include Teleperformance, Itel, Midas BPO, Qualfon and Express International Inc., to name a few.

However, Dr. Ramsaroop noted that the aim is to ensure that the BPO businesses are not just relegated to offices in Georgetown, or Region Four, but are taken into other regions, to develop job opportunities there.

As such, Go-Invest is focusing on attracting such companies to those regions. Through this planned study, the agency will be better equipped to understand the region’s workforce and attract the BPO companies to the other regions.

“Companies that come in, we are pushing them out to these regions. For example, in Region Two, we have a very solid young workforce available and the BPO offers immediate job opportunity for young people across the regions,” Dr. Ramsaroop noted.

“The study will be maybe in two months. In the meantime, the providers are also doing their own studies to see where they best fit, in which regions, based on the quality of the workforce, and the type of work being outsourced. We see that as a high employment opportunity for young people in Guyana.”

Over the past two years, the government has been placing particular focus on providing a stable environment for BPO firms here to invest and grow. This growth of the BPO industry will be further facilitated through the robust Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) development in Guyana.

Last year, some 125 new jobs were created, through the government’s partnership with a private operator to reopen a call centre in Linden. An additional 100 jobs are anticipated to be created at that call centre by June 2022.

Guyana has been noted as a hub for BPO investments with its diversified economy and culture affinity with the North American market, giving Guyanese the opportunity to build and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the industry.

Guyana has been involved in the BPO industry for over a decade but the industry, like many others, has been growing at an exponential rate, proportional to Guyana’s massive projected economic growth.

Dr. Ramsaroop noted that Go-Invest is in conversation with a number of new providers to come into Guyana, and has been working along with the BPO companies to assure foreign companies of government’s investment and backing of the sector, in support of the businesses.

The government’s support for the expansion of the BPO sector is parcel to an overall promise to ultimately create over 50,000 jobs during its five year term from 2020 – 2025.

“We are well on our way to meeting that goal and we continue to aggressively look at the ICT sector as having the opportunity for young people coming out of secondary school,” Dr. Ramsaroop noted.

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