Growth of SMEs for decades will soon be a ‘thing of the past’

Dear Editor,
We wish to thank you for publishing our previous letters and write again to underscore the national importance of the proposed Guyana Development Bank (GDB). Based on our recent research, we believe that it is essential that every Guyanese clearly understand the transformative role this institution will play within the broader ecosystem being developed by the Government to promote SMEs in Guyana.
As outlined by the President in his presentation, the GDB will go beyond providing interest-free, collateral-free loans to SMEs by offering them the support services they need to succeed, from start-up to maturity. According to the President, the GDB will help entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into bankable business ventures and continue the ‘hand-holding’ of SMEs by sector specialists and facilitators, who will provide technical support to help these businesses grow and develop in the medium and long run. In other words, the GDB will not just provide loans to SMEs and ‘let them figure out the rest on their own’, but actively work with them to create sustainable businesses through sector clusters. Based on the President’s presentation, the GDB represents a shift toward a more integrated model for developing SMEs, one that combines access to affordable finance with technical support services.
The number of SMEs that will stand to benefit from the GDB is considerable. In her speech at GUYEXPO, the Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Ms. Susan Rodrigues, reported that 5,800 SMEs were registered with the Small Business Bureau (SBB) between 2020 and 2035, bringing the total number of registered SMEs to 6,837 (DPI, November 13, 2025). In that speech, Minister Rodrigues also explained that more than 59,014 businesses were registered from 2020 to 2023. Even under conservative assumptions that only one-quarter of these are SMEs, the immediate pool of eligible enterprises exceeds 14,000. These numbers not only highlight the scale of demand but also the urgency of this transformative initiative.
Importantly, the GDB does not emerge as a one-off or isolated initiative. Instead, it is part of an ecosystem that has been steadily evolving since 2004, with the enactment of the Small Business Act (No. 2 of 2024). This Act established the Small Business Bureau and the Small Business Council, which have trained thousands of entrepreneurs, helped SMEs access concessional loans, and provided grants to these businesses. Over the past four years, the SBB has provided more than 4,000 SMEs with approximately $1 billion in grants, trained more than 10,000 businesses through targeted training programmes, and co-financed loans up to $30 million with the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry and Republic Bank, according to the CEO of the SBB (Guyana Times, January 21, 2025). The SMEs that benefited span various sectors, and many are owned by women. Even more remarkable is the provision of collateral-free, interest-free loans of up to $500,000 for individuals with disabilities, as well as nurturing the expansion of SMEs through its incubator center in Region 6 since 2022.
Looking ahead, this ecosystem will be expanded with the planned establishment of the Junior Stock Exchange. This critical institution will introduce, for the first time, a viable avenue for SMEs to access equity financing locally and complement the affordable debt financing provided by the GDB. In other words, the Junior Stock Exchange will broaden the range of financial instruments available to SMEs.
In conclusion, the GDB is an important element of the Government’s ecosystem for SMEs that has evolved since 2004 and will continue to evolve in the near and distant future.
The ecosystem will not only address the limited access to finance and the high cost of borrowing that have constrained SMEs for decades, but also other perennial challenges, such as ‘inadequate advisory services, business training, and management capacity’ faced by SME (IDB, 2018).
Thanks to the visionary leadership of President Ali and his government, all these challenges that stifled the creation and growth of SMEs for decades will soon be a ‘thing of the past’.

Regards,
Professor Tarron Khemraj & Sukrishnalall Pasha