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Private sector seeks joint venture with foreign and local companies, promotes dialogue with government
“If we don’t promote business and national enterprise people have no wages and government has nobody to govern. It is as simple as that. The old state-run models have failed throughout the world so that a priority for all government is promoting business - the private sector.”
There’s been quite a debate in Guyana about family-owned businesses. Valuable though they may be, they are not considered the best form or the world today. It is thought that they do not have the possibility of bringing on board as much investment as the country needs.
“Joint ventures are definitely necessary,” said Jardim, “I don’t think any business can afford to borrow money excessively in today’s world.”
Jardim pointed out that the rice sector in a technical sense is very productive. “We had the biggest rice crop we’ve ever seen last year but the economics are not as good as they could be, because rice worldwide is extremely competitive. There you can see, you need the benefits that come from joint ventures to change the economic nature, not the productive nature of rice. We can grow the rice physically. The question is, can we grow it competitively? ”
Jardim cited joint ventures already showing marked improvement to the industry. “One such is the local John Fernandes rice-growing outfit. And there are a number of such initiatives. People are moving in that direction.
Jardim said that many companies are looking for joint ventures with local or foreign companies. “My own company Industrial Engineering (IEL), a relatively small company in a small country is looking for a joint-venture partner. If you could say sell 50 percent of the shares of IEL to a company that would bring investment, bring technology with it, it can only be a good thing for both sides. I would say yes, let’s sign the deal!”
Guyana will soon sign investment treaties with both Canada and United States, and action that hopefully will open the doors for ventures not possible before.
One of Guyana’s success joint venture stories is Caribbean Containers Limited, which acquired SAPIL, a seals and packaging property from government. “They have new technology; they had an existing plant here in Guyana that wasn’t doing that well. They were able to bring their management, bring their new technology. This did not exist before and the two things were good, they fitted, ” said Jardim.
Dialogue with government has been fruitful George Jardim stated that members of the private sector had their first meeting with the new minister of finance in March. “We were encouraged that he is a personable and intelligent man that we can work with. But certainly we have had a very close dialogue with government and I may add we would have that dialogue with any government, it doesn’t really matter which government.”
The government and the private sector have had very close and fruitful dialogue, he said. “We had our summit with the president in October 1999 and we agreed to 19 measures. I can tell you that 17 of those measures have either been implemented or are very close to implementation. I think people do not realize that there is a vast amount of work going on and it’s very detailed work. It’s not the sort of thing that you can have an instant good factor. It’s tedious; it’s a lot of work and it happens in a diffused manner.”
Jardim pointed out that the Revenue Authority has been established and that there is movement on legislation for a security department. They’ve had government agree to set up a private-sector development bank. “We’ve had the consultants down here recently and Gerald Pemberton, the head of DFL in Trinidad spoke at the Guyana Manufacturers’ Association luncheon. We’ve had the enactment of money laundering legislation. We’ve had the enactment of measures to make a stock market possible - it’s a long list.”
He reiterated, “We’ve had definite movement on the question of technical and vocational education. Government has made a building available as a joint effort in the setting up of a technical and vocational college so many, many of those measures are happening.
“The investment code has been a key concern of the private sector for as long as I’ve been in business. President Jagdeo asked us to do that by Nov. 30. That was perhaps a little too enthusiastic because it is a lot of work, but it is in its final stages of drafting and we are now going through the technical work to do with the legal points that are concerned with investments’ code. So, there has been a tremendous dialogue with government and I fully expect that this new finance minister is interested in that dialogue and wants to continue it.”
“When we had our summit President Jagdeo said, ‘Well fellows, what are the problems?’
“We said,” said Jardim, ‘that the problems have to do with many issues - social issues, labor issues, issue of pay scales, issues of these things coming within public entities where you don’t have flexibility.’ ”
The president promised to de-link these institutions from government and to make autonomous boards on which private sector and civil society will be represented.
Private business has had a rough time, said Jardim, but nevertheless, the private sector commission itself has been strengthened. “We have seen the emergence now of an Essequibo Chamber of Commerce and a Lethem Chamber of Commerce, we have a new Chamber of Commerce in Corriverton. We’ve seen the Guyana Petrol Dealers’ Association become stronger. We have the Shrimping and Trawler Owners Association. All of these have become members of the Private Sector Commission. So you are seeing the growth of business oriented organizations. People are getting up and doing things for themselves.”
The furniture sector is ready for export market
The furniture sector is best prepared for the export market. They face issues of quality, delivery time, ability to deliver, technological issues. It is the general feeling that they don’t need much more of a push before they are truly world class.
But that takes investment declared Jardim, “You can’t simply change the technology, the education of your workers, you can’t do that by yourself. It takes a longer perspective; it takes an investment in tooling, in technology, in training to do that. Quite frankly, there is no alternative. … A development bank can definitely help that to happen.”
Businessmen believe that education holds the key to the future of industry
The Private Sector Commission is pursuing CIDA-funded technical vocational projects and a European Union-funded project. Those, he said, are immediate and are very much needed but they don’t replace public education system.
Private businessmen are at the moment engaged in an initiative of sponsorship of the teaching institutions. “We offer mentorship; we take stake holding in schools, mentorship between heads of business and head teachers to help them to function and also to help us to understand why they have problems. It is a vast undertaking. In Georgetown alone, you have more than 100 private schools. It’s not a small figure at all. You are talking of many, many thousands of teachers and all the management and staff problems, so on an optimistic note I can tell you the work has begun.”
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Table of Contents President Bharrat Jagdeo pursues foreign and local investment, builds confidence in private sector |
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“No business can afford to be only concerned about its own narrow interests so the private sector in this country is also involved in social and political matters. We have to be. If we don’t have input into creating a proper environment then there is no business --worse yet there is no country.” George Jardim, chairman of the private-sector commission.