AS government continues to work aggressively to advance the country’s infrastructural and economic development, Chief Investment Officer and Head of Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), Dr. Peter Ramsaroop, has said that the investment opportunities that are available are limitless.

During a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Ramsaroop explained that the massive investment that the government is making in the public sector is encouraging investments in the private sector.

He noted that if the private sector is to look at where government is initiating development, they would recognise that there are many activities that they can invest in.

“There’s no ending to investment opportunities in the near future. If you follow the budget, and you see government expenditures in all the regions, whether it’s roads, hospitals, it’s schools, it’s all initiating our economic activity. For example, we’re building out the road, whether it’s to Mabura, in the Kwakwani or Berbice area that opened up new lands, which creates opportunities for so many sectors. The agriculture sector then is boosted and then other sectors, retail services, telecommunication, all these other sectors follow along,” he explained.

GO-Invest serves as a primary contact for investors and liaising with government agencies throughout the investment process.

According to Ramsaroop, there is no shortage of capitalisation of Guyana’s economic boom, as Guyana continues to be a hub for investment both from the foreign direct investments and local investors.

“Government is implementing a lot of ease of doing business changes, and the private sector has stepped up to the challenge. The private sector is the engine of growth, so government can only facilitate and contribute to the public sector, but the private sector takes that lead and then works alongside government to make the economy run,” Dr. Ramsaroop noted.

Aside from government’s investment in infrastructure, Dr. Ramsaroop explained that the CARICOM 25 by 25 initiative is also driving massive investment in the area of agro-processing, and the Guyana Investment Office continues to see a lot of interest being generated in this sector.

The 25 by 25 initiative is a programme whereby the Caribbean region is striving to reduce its food import bill by at least 25 per cent by 2025.

“As the president solves the 25 by 25 CARICOM food bill, these sectors now are stepping up whether it is mega farm and soybean and corn seed to agro-processing. We’re in discussion with large meat [companies] for example regarding the packaging of meat for export,” he said before drawing attention to a woman whose business revolves around packaging pepper pot in a box and others like her who are marketing creative products.

“In Linden someone is producing split peas cook up in a packet. We’ve had interest whereby the Barbados military wants to buy those so that they can put it in a military meal packages.  If you follow the President’s budget, when folks align to that area you see that there is a lot of investment opportunities,” he said.

Outside of working to put the necessary infrastructure in place, and making investments in the public sector, the government also has a number of target areas where the private sector can capitalise on.

According to Ramsaroop, his office is also focusing heavily on local content.

“We are working on promoting our priority sectors, being agriculture, technology, and working on helping to get individuals investing more in those sectors and looking to see how we can increase incentives or other sectors to be energised,” Dr. Ramsaroop said.

While noting the significant contributions of investors, he said that the local investors have created thousands of jobs in the last year and have invested billions of dollars into the economy.

“So we will continue to focus on putting our local content to work. Push for foreign direct investors to work closely with local investors, through joint ventures, and consortiums and continue to develop, and help facilitate investment development in Guyana,” he added.