Major industrial, manufacturing & agro-processing hub to prepare SMEs for intl markets – Pres Ali

– says facility will be bolstered with Bloomberg Grains deal

In an effort to create opportunities for local businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the Guyana Government will be building out a mega industrial, manufacturing and agro-processing hub to support Guyanese farmers and entrepreneurs to produce high-quality products for international markets. This was announced by President Dr Irfaan Ali on Friday evening during the commissioning of the World Trade Centre Georgetown (WTCG) building on High Street in Kingston, Georgetown.

With the facility poised to enhance Guyana’s trade relations and leverage capital, the Head of State noted that there must be an environment to support Guyanese businesses, including SMEs, to take advantage of these opportunities.
“We now have to create that ecosystem to help our SMEs. So, one of the things that we’re going to do is that we’re going to build an industrial manufacturing and agro processing hub with the shell completely outfitted, so that we can have these entities placed in a world-class facility from day one. So, they’ll be operating with certain standards from day one,” he posited.
In order to help SMEs build their competitiveness, meet the standards of the international market, access technology and get cheap capital, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration has already made plans to create a special investment vehicle to support local businesses. This investment vehicle will see Government co-investing with them to bring down the cost of financing and reduce lending risks for financial institutions.
According to President Ali, these initiatives will be bolstered by the partnership that Guyana will soon be entering into with Bloomberg Grains to drive food and agriculture trade.
“What Bloomberg Grains will do is to rapidly take our standards to the US (United States) standards, so that everything that we do in terms of processing and value-added with our agricultural commodity will immediately be ready for the US market and the rest of the global market because we’re going to go towards that standard. So that’s the first thing they will do. They’ll be working on the regulations and the infrastructure to take our standards there,” he noted.
In addition, Bloomberg Grains will also be building out the facility in keeping with those internationally-recognised standards to enhance trade as well as attract investors. “They will be bringing in major players and investors – brands to be part of the facility, so that we can then integrate Northern Brazil with the facility, integrate our local production system with the facility, and then have all of CARICOM integrated with that facility, and then the extra regional trade.”
“So, our small farmers, our medium-scale farmers, our small processors, everybody will be part of this ecosystem that will be bringing all their input [under] one umbrella organisation – Bloomberg Grains. So, we’ll satisfy financing, technology, regulations, market, Human Resource assets, and all of that with just this one agreement with a world-class player in the food and agricultural area,” the Guyanese Leader stated.
President Ali had first announced that Guyana will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bloomberg earlier this month for a marketing and branding a food hub being built at Yarrowkabra, Soesdyke-Linden Highway. That agreement is expected to be signed in the coming weeks; he had told farmers in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) during a public meeting.
In a subsequent interview with this publication, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha had provided further insight into the impending signing of the MoU. He revealed that the construction of the facility at Yarrowkabra has started already, but Bloomberg will do the layout and everything else.
The Head of State declared on Friday that Government will be pursuing more of these partnerships in the future to bolster the ecosystem that is being built out to support local businesses as well as push agricultural trade.
With the strong mechanisms already being put in place to help local businesses to enter the international market, President Ali emphasised the importance of forming small consortiums especially by young entrepreneurs so that they are better positioned to grasp these opportunities.
“We [have to] move away from the concept of sole traders and family businesses, not that they’re not good, but I think they have served us for a long time in the history of our country, and now our country has rapidly outgrown that structure of business. And we have to adopt these new structures that will enable us to grow at the rate that we should be grow at,” he asserted.
The PPP/C Government is pursuing several ongoing initiatives that are aimed at increasing food production, as well as the resilience, and sustainability of the sector.