Editorial
Stabroek News
June 6, 2001

The announcement by the President at last week Friday's press conference that the Guyana Missions (Embassies) abroad are to be re-organised so that they can play an essential role in the promotion of investment and trade has come none too soon. It is at least arguable that while constitutional amendments will help in diminishing conflict, in the long run the cohesiveness of our society will derive from every one sharing in a high level of prosperity.

For a small State like Guyana, as William Demas had pointed out long ago, economic development is heavily dependent on export-led growth. The two essential elements in that process are investment, including importantly foreign investment, and the search for new markets. It will be nearly always the case that investment will be directed towards producing in Guyana from our resources and raw material and/or imported raw material a product for export. Hitherto the local entrepreneur has had little assistance in finding a joint investor overseas or in looking for technology or a market. It is in providing such assistance if only in pointing where to look or who to contact that our diplomats could in the future support the process of development.

The President is surely right in saying that our diplomats seem at present to spend too much of their time on paper work. This is not to minimise the valuable consular services which small missions provide to the Guyana migrant communities in North America and in Britain or the diplomatic exchanges which maintain our place in the international community.

And it is not only a matter of what can be done at the Missions. There must be effective representation at the regional and global conferences which set the framework in which investment is made and trade conducted.

Now as in the past there is much talk of economic diplomacy but with little to show for it. The phrase has apparently been interpreted to mean Guyana's presence at international economic conferences at ministerial level. Effective economic diplomacy to preserve and advance Guyana's interests must surely mean making sure that the fine print in the numerous clauses and sub-clauses of agreements negotiated at such conferences are in keeping with or are amended in line with Guyana's national interests.

Let us put the situation concretely. Getting access for one of our products is no longer just a question of getting rid of tariff barriers or lowering of tariffs or even of the abolition of restrictive import quotas in the prospective market. That is comparatively easy. Some of the real barriers which will be encountered by the Guyana diplomats in trying to get a Guyana product into a new market may include sanitary regulations, standards which require that a product has been produced in an environmentally acceptable manner (a consideration which regularly bedevils our forest exports), rules which aim to protect the importing countries own industries, quality requirements and endless bureaucratic delays, to name only a few.

Moreover in these days of reciprocity when it is certain the government of the country to which one exports will insist that their own products be given similar access into Guyana, the Guyanese diplomat must look over his shoulder all the time to ensure that he yields nothing which might endanger our own small industries or modify our ways of living unacceptably.

Where will Guyana find such diplomats? There may already be one or two in the Foreign Service but the situation requires emergency training. This surely could be a priority task for the once active Foreign Service Institute.

But even such training may not suffice. So this is clearly an area in which it is imperative that there should be close cooperation with the private sector which is now in the process of establishing its own training institute.

Such cooperation should not be limited to such matters as training, exchange of experience and agreement on objectives. Would it be too much to expect that young entrepreneurs in some of our established firms could be released to serve for fixed periods in Guyana Missions?

Moreover, the exercise could not wholly be one of diplomatic persuasion. Government must now enact urgently the long pondered investment legislation.

This is not the first time that it has been announced that the Guyana Missions are to be re-organised to support industrial development. We recall that President Jagdeo had himself drawn attention to this need shortly after taking office.

With foreign investment and economic assistance drying up, the hour is already late. Our new Foreign Minister must be strongly supported in moving the process beyond rhetoric as on it could depend the future prosperity of Guyana and our country.