The local private sector is exploring new and innovative methods of securing trade and investment with the publication of business plan profiles on several of the country's firms.
The approximately 400-page document titled "First Listing of Business Opportunities With Firms Across Guyana" is aimed at showcasing business opportunities available, including investment openings.
The document gives business plan profiles of nearly 300 local firms and includes more than 600 opportunities for investment.
However, according to its developers, it will remain confidential within the country.
Publication of the second edition within six months of this title will most likely see circulation locally but this it was said would depend on permission from participants in the business plan profiling.
The listing, which will be initially circulated to several countries is the work of a group of local bodies who came together to aggressively attract investment to the country.
At a press briefing on Thursday called to highlight the initiative, business leaders from the Association of Regional Chambers of Commerce of Guyana (ARCC), the Forest Products Association (FPA), the Guyana Manufacturers' Association (GMA) and the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) touted it as a means of making contact with businessmen and investors.
Chairman of the ARCC, Ramdial Bhookmohan said the documentation empowers the local business sector to assume responsibility for taking the country directly to the international marketplace.
This approach, according to Bhookmohan, was adopted mainly owing to remarks by President Bharrat Jagdeo at last year's 69th annual luncheon of the Berbice Chamber, in which he stated that businesses don't need any more studies but rather had to be taken to the marketplace.
The development of the plan was also the result of the frustration of overseas firms, particularly Brazilian ones, who had dealt with earlier trade missions that suffered from lack of commercial data and focus.
According to Bhookmohan, to counter the commercial concerns in Brazil, ARCC developed business plan profiles on firms that participated on the business building mission. However, the chief concern of participants in the profiling was that their business plan profiles remain confidential within Guyana.
This was so because of the competitive nature of business plans and the experience of many participants in having their competitors "borrow" their ideas.
For this reason, according to the ARCC head, the profiles of each business is only seen locally by that business and two other persons who did the analyses and profiling. It was this confidentiality pledge, he stated, that helped in reassuring participating firms, adding that the assurance will help to bring out more firms in their second edition.
The plans, Bhookmohan said, deal with investment, buyer and supplier opportunities locally, and are compiled through the issuing of a simple questionnaire designed to pull enough key information on each business plan.
President of the FPA, John Willems, spoke of the difficulties faced by businesses locally which need to get into markets and to retool as a way of achieving competitiveness.
Owing to the lack of capital locally and the exorbitant lending rates in the banking sector, the answer is in importing capital, Willems observed, thus joining forces to empower the business sector to assume responsibility for positioning the country in the global marketplace.
According to him, after inviting members of the FPA to participate, and some 70 opportunities for investment were profiled, a recent visiting Thailand trade team which expressed interest in furniture and wood products has requested information on the firms to be sent to them.
The profiles, he said, listed business principles and contact information, including e-mail addresses, which would lead to more straightforward transactions without the need for middlemen.
Administrative officer of GMA and secretary of ARCC, Derrick Cummings, stated that the involvement of the manufacturers group, though limited, had been motivated by its general lack of financial muscle to advertise firms in foreign markets beyond CARICOM.
According to Cummings, the low level of participation by GMA members in the listing of investment-buyer-supplier was mainly because they did not understand the scope or depth of the project.
He saw the book as not just being a listing of opportunities but rather as a set of business plan profiles which present the country's firms and their opportunities as favourably as possible with the best chance of attracting external investment.
Executive Director of THAG, Indira Anandjit, who was also at the briefing, in welcoming the listings expressed pride in what she said was the country's ability to catch up with its CARICOM neighbours.
According to Anandjit, the type of outreach offered by the publication is likely to attract strategic investors with alliances, although she acknowledged that industries need to reach that takeoff point. And THAG's involvement, she noted, is in helping to further unlock the local tourist industry's potential and showcase it to the world.