Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Manzoor Nadir, has said his ministry would create the Industrial Development Authority in 2003 to help manage industrial estates across the country.
Nadir was speaking at Monday's session of the budget debate and added that free zones would also be established in 2003 as mentioned by the Finance Minister in his budget presentation.
He also said competition legislation would be introduced this year to ensure fair commerce within the country. He said the legislation would not only ensure that there was a level playing field within the country's borders, but also that a free enterprise system became embedded in the laws of the country.
He added that the legislation would increase an investor's confidence more than any investment code.
Nadir noted that his commerce division had been collaborating with the CARICOM Secretariat which had model legislation that would see the creation of a competition commission and be a common piece of legislation replicated in other Caribbean territories as part of the single market economy.
Nadir told Parliament that the legislation would be taken to the National Assembly this year, noting that a lot of work had already been done on it and preparations were being made to hear stakeholders' views.
He also said that e-commerce and consumer laws would also be introduced this year. On the issue of the e-commerce law, he said that the passage of the legislation in Parliament would allow for businessmen to do businesses on the internet. "While some amount of business activity is happening already with Guyanese consumers and businesses on the internet, there is no specific legislation that governs these transactions done by the information technology process."
The industry department of his ministry has been looking at the creation and management of industrial estates. Nadir mentioned that Coldingen and Eccles were two estates over the past seven years that had come on line. According to the minister for last year, the work programme for the industry division was stymied because of the lack of funding. He hinted that the budgetary allocations in 2002 were not realigned because those allocations were tied to debt relief and as a result his ministry was not able to press ahead with the creation of industrial estates in all of the regions. He said the Lethem industrial site had been envisaged for a number of years and this year the ministry was going to give construction permits to persons to begin work on the site.
Nadir said discussions were ongoing with friendly countries to provide skilled personnel to work with small and micro enterprise producers to improve production techniques, production capacity and product development in almost all areas - craft, jams and jellies, small business trading.
He also said that this year an expert from China was expected to help with bamboo craft production for the tourism industry.
Nadir referred to the establishment of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) but said the ministry of tourism would continue to retain responsibility for policy setting and for site development for the division. He said this year the GTA would have the two principal objectives of dealing with product development and standards and creating a generic overseas marketing programme.
He announced that this year his ministry intended to develop Kaieteur Falls. "Whilst I say commercialisation, I know as these reports hit the press, persons will say "there goes Kaieteur". It is not going to be a Niagara, but we need to get more persons to visit Kaieteur. We need to do a lot of product development there for this to happen."
He pointed out that cabinet has given its approval for some immediate plans for Kaieteur, which would see the privatisation of the guesthouse and the construction of some eco-lodges among other things. As for No. 63 Beach, Nadir said additional benabs would be built, along with grading of the access road going up to the beach and de-bushing some of the areas without harm to the environment.
In Georgetown, he said the ministry would support the building of a tourism zone from the Bank of Guyana to Pegasus Hotel to Kitty Pump Station.