Region 2 businesses benefit from business development training

Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), Small Business Bureau, Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), and the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) hosted a two-day Business Development Workshop in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) focused on helping to establish and develop small businesses as a strategy for creating more and better employment.
The workshop, which commenced on Tuesday, was hosted at the regional office boardroom, Anna Regina.
Among the focus of the training was to educate entrepreneurs and other persons who would like to join the business community.
Speaking during the opening of the workshop, Senior Export Promotion Officer KibbyAnn Chester enlightened entrepreneurs on the mandate of GO-Invest.
She noted that the main objective of the programme is to educate Essequibians on business development, adding that GO-Invest was established with the focus of contributing to Guyana’s economic development.

Chester stated that the services provided by GO-Invest have evolved to meet the needs of investors and will continue to provide the services offered to Essequibians. Also, during her presentation, she noted that there are nine steps in the procedure of exporting which include; registering the business, Taxpayers’ Identification Number where exporters must be registered with GRA for a TIN certificate. She said that the next procedures are to identify source product(s), identify external markets, packaging requirements, acquiring an appropriate licence that includes wildlife.
However, in acquiring the appropriate licence, an Environmental Protection Agency licence is also required. In continuing the procedures, Chester added that the next steps are to identify the mode of transport, whether it’s by air/sea, identify a broker, and lastly is to export.

Business proposal
“When acquiring incentives for new and expanding projects, investors are required to complete and submit the GO-Invest Expression of Interest (EOI) from a business proposal… returning investors and those who are expanding their businesses are required to submit a Progress Report on their business in addition to a new EOI and an updated proposal,” Director of Investment Samara Watkins explained.
Watkins added that after an investor has made the decision to embark on a business enterprise and wishes to access fiscal incentives, a business plan and an expression of interest form must be submitted in triplicate to the agency.
She educated those at the training on best practices when writing a business proposal.

Packaging and labelling
Meanwhile, the Assistant Agriculture Development Officer for Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) Amit Parbat explained that countries have specific packaging and labelling requirements for retail products, and as such it is important that products are properly packaged and labelled whenever leaving Guyana and also being marketed.