-GCCI CEO says at launch of online marketplace

THE Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI)’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Timothy Tucker, on Tuesday, emphasised that small businesses will need lots of support to ensure they survive.
“They will need technical assistance, assistance for certifications. Most importantly, the biggest one is access to finance,” Tucker said during the launch of Stabroek Online Marketplace.
He shared that access to finance is a small business’ nightmare worldwide. Tucker noted that even though this is sad, it is even more challenging for medium-sized businesses to acquire finance as they are too large to receive grants.
“Medium-sized businesses are too large for grants and don’t have the equity or the infrastructure and, in the case of Guyana, where you need to have immovable assets… you can’t borrow against moveable assets in Guyana,” Tucker said.
He noted that this is a barrier which needs to be addressed urgently and changed.
“So, the big thing is because medium-sized businesses don’t have capital or access to equity that they can leverage at the bank, it makes it very difficult for them to find avenues in which they can borrow or go to get financing,” Tucker said.
He said that over the weekend, GCCI’s small business week saw lots of businesses which operate in residential areas, bottom houses, out of the city and more. This raises the conversation of these small businesses acquiring lands to carry on their businesses.
“They have good products, good business ideas, but they just need access to land,” he said.
He added: “Part of it is on us as a business community to ensure getting land is just not to flip it and that they are going to really use the land for meaningful business ideas, meaningful businesses and I think maybe one of the suggestions would be for it to be a lease with option to buy and to cater for smaller plots of land for businesses and setting up incubator hubs.”
He also shared that GCCI is willing to work with the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) to formulate a plan to have an industrial park.
“We need to capitalise and really grow our stock exchange…we would have indicated to government that more lands need to be available. With all the housing development going on in Region Four, we need to have more industrial areas and more industrial areas that are allocated for small businesses,” he said.
Additionally, he said, GCCI is supportive of a local oil refinery as this will help to fill the demand in the local market and control the prices better.
“If we are able to have a refinery locally, we would be able to fill your demand in the local market and we would be able to control the prices a little better than it is, and, of course, there are so many byproducts of a refinery that can be done,” Tucker said.