Regional manufacturers preparing for major summit in Guyana

Last Updated on Monday, 30 October 2023, 5:55 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) is teaming up with the Caribbean Manufacturers Association (CMA) to hold a regional summit in Guyana to address critical issues facing manufactures across the region and prepare the country to become a major manufacturing hub in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a top official.

GMSA President, Ramsay Ali reasoned that Guyana would become attractive to manufacturers from Latin America and the Caribbean “within the next three to five years” because of lower energy costs, opening of new lands for development and government’s position on investment.  He said the GMSA’s projections take into consideration the fact that electricity demand would outstrip supply from the gas-to-shore electricity plant and the Amaila Falls Hydropower plant would still be a few years away. Against that background, he said there might be a second gas to shore electricity plant to eventually boost electricity supply to 800 megawatts.

“We’re not going to make up stories. We’re going to tell them what the facts are,” said Mr Ali, who is also the CMA Chairman, when asked what comfort could be given to investors.

The GMSA is also depending on the completion of the Guyana-Brazil road as a conduit for cheap raw materials from that sister South American nation. He conceded that Guyana’s manufacturers would be unable to compete with cheaper Brazilian goods. “The answer is ‘no’ but you can’t look at the glass half full either. You have to look at it from either side,” he said.

Slated for March 21-22, 2024 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, the event is expected to bring together representatives from manufacturing associations in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, St Lucia, and Dominica.

Mr Ali said the Guyana government, through Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, has endorsed the summit which would include tours to big and small manufacturing establishments here.  “Given the development and expansion of Guyana fuelled from funds from funds coming out of hydrocarbon industry. With energy costs going to a place where it has never been before, the climate here, we believe is ripe for investors to come and manufacture here as against bringing in finished goods into this country and stop being a trading post,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

Issues that are expected to form part of the agenda are the absence of cheap and reliable transportation in the Caribbean, Rules of Origin in the context of the Caribbean Community’s Council for Trade and Economic Development, and the production of cheap white sugar in the region, and the dumping of cheaper goods such as paint on the regional market to the detriment of regional manufacturers.