President Ali underscores importance of local content

…as scores of int’l investors “hungry” to explore opportunities in Guyana

Scores of investors from all parts of the globe will soon be visiting Guyana to explore the various business opportunities available in both the country’s budding oil and gas industry and traditional sectors.
This was disclosed by President Dr Irfaan Ali on Friday as he wrapped up his visit to New York, where he attended the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud, Foreign Affairs Minister Hugh Todd, President Dr Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

On the sidelines of the main event, the Guyanese Head of State and his contingent, which included Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Foreign Minister Hugh Todd, and Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud, held discussions with a number of global leaders regarding investment opportunities in Guyana.
“You would see a flow of different delegations coming from different parts of the world to Guyana, to do … an on-ground inspection. So, they are coming to do a physical evaluation of what the opportunities are, not only in oil and gas,” the Guyanese leader explained.
He noted that these potential investors were interested in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, the services industry, and the energy sector.
“We have six or seven delegations out of this week of engagement. We had very good meetings from Prime Ministers to Princes and they too are working on delegations to come to Guyana, and for us to have further engagements with them in the wide cross-section of the economy,” the Head of State added.
According to President Ali, from all of the meetings, it is clear that Guyana is of high focus on the international scene.
“We also had very good meetings with various representatives from the Middle East,” he said.
“Our country is playing on a different stage. Our country is getting a different level of attention. Our country is being focused on and as leaders, we have to ensure that we give clear clarity on where the country is going. Strong leadership is required,” the President explained.

Finance everything
President Ali noted that in his discussions with these potential investors, many of them were eager to finance everything, but he had to temper their expectations, advising that local content must take priority.
“If you give them a chance, from what I heard, to be honest with you, they will finance everything…they want to finance all the public sector projects, they want to finance all the Private Sector projects. We had to tame that expectation and to make a point to them that there are certain carveouts for locals,” the Head of State explained.
“And the type of investment we want to see must include locals, it must have a local content component. We encouraged them to partner with local businesses…because what we have seen from the interest in Guyana, if they get the opportunity, they would suck up the entire market overnight! There is huge interest…they are seeing the opportunities from financing projects, housing and construction…,” he added.
President Ali noted too that the investors were very interested in his concept of Silica City – a new city along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway.
“They are hungry to invest in a new city, some of them even brought conceptual designs of the new city and what the new city should entail. That is the excitement that is coming to Guyana, and that is the energy that is coming to us that we have to transform in our thinking, and the way we operate locally,” the Head of State posited.
Vice President Jagdeo, in fielding questions from the media on another topic, also drew focus to the fact that significant resources are being invested in ensuring opportunities are available for Guyanese to benefit from the oil boom.
“We’re having special carveouts for Guyanese. Transportation, logistics, rentals, all of these the oil companies can only source these services from Guyanese; that represents billions of US dollars of opportunities for our people,” Jagdeo noted.

Democratic concerns
Meanwhile, President Ali admitted that some investors had concerns about the democratic standing of the country – in light of last year’s five-month-long tumultuous elections whereby attempts were made to deny the will of the people.
“It is clear that persons were following the five months… We had to repair a lot of damage also. We have had to answer a lot of questions in relation to that, but we are very happy that we had the opportunity to do (so) and we were able to present Guyana as a strong emerging market not only for oil and gas but the various opportunities that are coming ahead,” the Guyanese leader stated. (G11)