…President assures GMSA
By Lisa Hamilton
President Irfaan Ali, on Wednesday, assured the country’s manufacturing and services sector that under his Administration there will be no more power outages even as he praised what he termed the resilient spirit of entrepreneurs in the said sector.
The President said: “There was a period in our country’s history when these sectors were plagued by daily power outage, lack of raw materials and other inputs and extreme difficulties in obtaining foreign currency. This led to a contraction of manufacturing and thwarted the development of the services sector. Yet, despite these difficulties, the captions of industry and commerce persevered…the dark ages for the manufacturing services ended and with it came a brighter and better times.”
He was at the time delivering an address at the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association’s (GMSA) 25th Annual presentation of Awards Ceremony held at State House.
President Ali acknowledged that 2020 has been a difficult year which has led to business contraction but expressed confidence that the country’s economy will rebound come 2021.
He said his Government will fashion a transformative economic agenda which will strengthen the sector’s footing in national development as he pointed to higher levels of and sustained economic growth; the modernization of the primary sectors – agriculture, fishery, forestry and mining; the installation of transformational infrastructure; the rebalancing of the economy to boost value-added production; and the improvement of efficiency and innovativeness.
“The Private Sector and the Manufacturing Association must see themselves as integral. They have an integral part to play, not a complaining role or a complaining part. It is for this reason that we’re involving the Private Sector in every aspect of development,” President Ali said.
President Ali continued: “We have to work together to improve our competitive strength and we have to work together to increase our market share not only in Guyana but, first of all, in CARICOM and then beyond.”
Meanwhile, GMSA President, Shyam Nokta said while the aftermath of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and the COVID-19 pandemic have had a negative impact on the business sector, the GMSA is proud of the businesses which ‘tough it out’ and helped to keep Guyana’s economy afloat.
He disclosed that the agro-processing; forestry and wood processing; engineering and construction; chemical and pharmaceuticals; manufacturing and the services sector, all showed declines this year.
“2020 will be remembered as a year of challenges but also a year when we, as Guyanese, withstood these challenges,” Nokta said adding that “There’s a high level of optimism by the Private Sector. Guyana is on the cusp of transformation never seen before…we are committed to working in partnership with Government.”
The GMSA President thanked President Ali for the 2020 budgetary measures which will aid the Association such as the removal of VAT on electricity, water, exports, machinery equipment, building and construction material, fertilizers and other pesticides; the reversal of land lease fees; tax concessions on investments in agro- processing; incentives for large scale agriculture and the reopening of the sugar estates.
“These measures provided a much-needed impetus to restore investor confidence and a clear demonstration of Government’s commitment to restore economic activity in the shortest possible time,” he said.
Meanwhile, several businesses received awards from the GMSA. These include: Agro Services Inc.; Bulkan’s Timber Works (BTW); Pleasurable Flavours; Fiber Tech Industrial Plastics; Triple C Consultancy; Comfort Sleep; Action Coach; Sterling Products Limited; Demerara Distillers Limited; General Manager of Barama Company Limited, Mahindra Chan; Director of the Department of Foreign Trade, Dianna Da Silva-Glasgow.
Additionally, four Ambassadors to Guyana were also awarded for their contribution to the conclusion of Guyana’s 2020 General and Regional Elections. They were U.S. Ambassador, Sarah Ann Lynch; British High Commissioner, Gregg Quinn; Canadian High Commissioner, Lillian Chatterjee and Ambassador of the European Union, Fernando Ponz Canto.
The GMSA has a membership of 160, welcoming 17 new members in 2020.
