Int’l Building Expo 2023: “Our focus will be more on quality not more so quantity” – Minister

Individuals seeking to attend International Building Expo 2023 which is slated for August can expect to have nothing short of an elevated experience, as the Housing Ministry aims to have an improved quality of businesses within the construction sector occupy booths at this year’s event.
Speaking with this publication on Thursday, Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal noted that the goal of this year’s expo is not necessarily to increase the number of booths, but rather to provide more options for quality businesses that add value to the construction sector.
“This year our focus is not on increasing booths, it will be more on what we’re showcasing. It’s providing options and providing in the sector, new options that are available in the construction sector, existing possibilities. So, our focus will be more on quality not more so quantity, but we know that whence we make available the space and we advertise for persons who can be part of the booths, I’m sure we would have an overwhelming response,” the Minister remarked.
The Minister noted that this expo caters specifically to all that the construction sector entails and does not cater to businesses outside of that category, as he highlighted the negative response of a business that was unable to put its products on display at last year’s event.
“We have to understand what’s the purpose of this expo and what is it we want to showcase. It’s international building expo…there are different types of expos. We want to keep this within the confines of what the sector has to offer and [when] we talking about the building and construction sector, all the services that are formed within our sector whether it’s financial institutions, banking institutions, insurance companies etc,” Croal explained.
Nevertheless, the Minister recalled the success of the last expo as he shared how overwhelming the response was, even after transitioning back to normalcy after the global COVID-19 pandemic which hindered several annual events for 2 years.
“The last building expo you would recall [was] a return of the expo because it was not held for many years. Coming out of the COVID period too, it has its initial challenges in terms of preparing and getting persons to understand that we’re moving back to normalcy. [But] we had a successful expo and even so, we had it held over for one day. And all the participants, [and] those who had booths…said the response was overwhelming,” the Housing and Water Minister boasted.
Last year the Ministry saw over 300 participants including individuals as well as both local and international companies. The Minister told Guyana Times that even though the official launch of the event has not occurred yet, several companies have already indicated their interest in being part of the sponsorship.
According to previous reports, Building Expo 2022 attracted some 350 participants, of which at least 25 were foreign companies, including some from the Caribbean – Suriname, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados along with others from the United States, Canada, and Ghana. During the expo, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) also executed its allocation of 5000 house lots through its “Dream Realised” programme as well as the distribution of over 500 land titles and transports.