A number of Jamaican companies have signalled their interest in doing business in Guyana and a delegation from the Jamaican Chamber of Commerce is currently here exploring these avenues.
Representatives of the GCCI, including GCCI Senior Vice President Timothy Tucker, and GO-Invest Head Owen Verwey, along with the delegation from the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce at the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, on Monday
With Guyana now being an oil-producing nation, a number of regional countries have been visiting on trade missions. For this particular mission, Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), is collaborating with its Jamaican counterpart to further the Jamaica-Guyana Economic and Commercial Partnership.
This is according to GCCI Senior Vice President, Timothy Tucker, who on Monday during the first day of the three-day meeting with the Jamaican delegation told the media that the trade relations between Guyana and Jamaica remain positive and strong.
He noted that Jamaica is already one of the primary markets for Guyana’s exports and that there is much more that can be done through partnership.
“There remains, however, an unexploited potential for increasing trade between Jamaica and Guyana. In 2018 our countries held talks and agreed to reactivate the Guyana-Jamaica joint commission that was set up under the agreement of Economic, Technical and Cultural Co-operation which was signed by both States on June 1st, 1999. The reactivation would see both countries collaborating on trade and investment and agriculture among other things.”
Meanwhile, according to President of Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, Lloyd Distant Jr over 10 representatives are in Guyana discussing potential investment and trade initiatives.
He explained that although it may appear to be a small number of Jamaicans, each person represents multiple organisations/companies that have interests in offering services in Guyana.
“We have a number of persons who are in the technology fields, manage services, shared services, Information Technology (IT) security, cloud services. As well as a number of consulting and business support operations, services businesses, trading and distribution. We are represented by a couple of businesses in that area, real estate, manufacturing, we have two companies here that are in the manufacturing and as well as legal services, in particular arbitration and dispute resolution.”
Additionally, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GO-Invest (Guyana), Owen Verwey commended the GCCI for spearheading and facilitating the resuscitation of the partnership with the Jamaican counterparts.
He stated that Guyana is filled with many opportunities for investment especially with the oil and gas sector as a catalyst for the furthered development of the region.
He added that the difference in the two countries’ tourism landscape presents a huge opportunity for Jamaicans by combining those locations for multi-destination tourism among other profitable initiatives.
