–President Ali says local content participation, enhancement extend beyond Guyana’s shores
–Guyanese should have capacity to be competitive anywhere in the world

PRESIDENT, Dr Irfaan Ali has urged Guyanese not to look at local content as a way of accelerating their growth in the local economy alone, but also in the region and beyond.
With Guyana’s transition, Dr Ali said it requires an “all hands on deck” approach.
While delivering his feature address at the second annual Local Content Summit at the Pegasus Suites and Corporate Centre last Tuesday, the President underscored that the nation’s transition requires a change in “our” mindset and repositioning for growth.

“Because if we believe local content is about achieving local things or participating only in the local economy, then we will be, limiting ourselves and our growth,” he said, while highlighting that local content is aimed at building local capacity to compete anywhere else in the world while positioning local companies to be number one in the region.
“But how do we position every sector to be number one?” the Head of State asked hypothetically.

With Local Content, Dr Ali stated that this paves the way for this goal while bolstering local growth and development to meet regional and international needs.
Dr Ali put forth the stance that he does not hold the view that any discussion on local content should be around what the local opportunities are, but instead how the country moves forward with what it has now.

“When you look at, 2024, and compare the period between 2022 and 2024, you will see that there was a 20 per cent increase in value through local participation that came to local companies. That is an increase of US$84 million in 2024,” he said.
According to him, it is estimated that 6,000 jobs were created as a result of the Local Content legislation. On December 31, 2021, the Government of Guyana passed the Local Content Act 2021.

Subsequently, it published several related guidelines that were designed to maximise the participation of Guyanese companies wherever they have the skills and capacity to get involved, beginning with services such as office space rental, janitorial services, laundry and catering services, pest control services, insurance services, supply of food and accounting services and extending through long-term involvement in highly skilled subsectors like subsea installation, geophysical analysis and engineering.

President Ali noted, “To build capacity, it requires us to change our model. So, there are a number of things that go hand in hand with building out capacity, scale modelling, value creation, those are things that go hand in hand.”
But how does Guyana ensure that it has value creation?

Dr Ali stated that this can be done through business modelling and through the scale at which “we” operate and build capacity.
“When we started on this local content journey, we realised that the scale of what was required was so large, that no single company or capital formation could match the scale of what was required. But slowly we saw companies coming together. We saw consortiums being built,” the Head of State said.

While noting that the scale of operation is changing, he said that Guyana has to ensure that its business model is also reflecting that change in scale.
“And this is where summits like these and seminars like these are important because [they] allow a level of networking that allows you to bring capital together, to bring human assets together, to integrate companies and to build the scale that is required to address the opportunities ahead of us,” he stated.