With the objective of “Building Strong and Sustainable Business Relationships across borders”, three Caricom countries have collaborated with Guyana to share and explore commercial business prospects.
Participants at the two-day event
The first ever Trade Mission by the financial institution saw employees from Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname converging at the Marriot International Hotel.
Back in September, the recently established Republic Bank Suriname approached the bank here in Guyana with the idea of mobilising a small contingent of Surinamese businesses to explore trade prospects with businesses here.
Managing Director of Republic Bank Guyana Limited Richard Sammy said the local bank reached out to its customers and an invitation was extended to the Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago clientele.
He said the Trade Mission initiative comes at a time of global and economic challenges and a critical juncture in the history of all nations.
“Notwithstanding, Guyana remains strong in the face of these circumstances, with a promising outlook where, according to a recent World Bank overview, the economy is expected to grow by approximately 4 per cent in 2016-17. Most of this growth is expected to come from continued rapid growth of gold production and rebounding performance in construction, as well as the wholesale and retail trade industries. Coupled with this favourable forecast is the growing oil and gas momentum,” he told the room of Bankers.
According to him, Republic Bank’s rich history, vast institutional knowledge base and geographical presence uniquely positions it to offer delegates of all territories the opportunity to engage, network and share knowledge with a view to collaborating for stronger regional, mutually beneficial business relations, and by extension regional development.
“Our mission is to provide the practical, purposeful means to ‘Make it Happen’. ExxonMobil recently voiced its intention to fast-track the Liza discovery on the 6.6 million acre Stabroek Block, having given the Government of Guyana official notice of the discovery’s commercial quantities. Undoubtedly, the implications of this development for this nation, and the Region are transformational,” he said.
“At Republic Bank, we believe in the power of building relationships with our customers, communities and all of our stakeholders. As the Caribbean financial institution of choice, we remain focused on expanding and strengthening our local and Regional alliances, and this forum is intended to serve as the catalyst for realising our vision of bridging economies and highlighting synergies.”
Republic Bank’s group Executive Director Roopnarine Singh told the gathering that he was confident about the high number of business relations that would be had from the two-day meet.
“Our vision for this and subsequent Trade Missions is to bring together our corporate and commercial customers across all jurisdiction in which we operate, to establish beneficial relationships, positive multilateral trade, open up new markets and create additional revenues generating avenue for our customers beyond the existing national boundaries and business modules.”
Singh said the vision of Republic Bank remains to build successful communities, and one of the means of accomplishing this was through leveraging its significant customer base throughout the Region.
The bank, he said, has always prided itself on supporting the development of the communities in which it operates. The Executive Director sees the Trade Mission as a significant milestone in achieving this goal.
“Our goal is to provide a seamless experience throughout the jurisdiction in which we operate. We recognise that we do have some work to do in that regard. We have in every jurisdiction, we run a different IT platform… as you find the ease of doing business with Republic Bank itself.”
The event concludes today.
