CAIC Head to address EMPRETEC Network forum on Single Market opportunities for small, medium-sized businesses
Stabroek News
May 18, 2007
Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad & Tobago-based Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) Carol Ayong is due in Guyana on May 25 to deliver an address to the local private sector on the opportunities to be derived from the advent of the Caribbean Single Market (CSM) for small and medium-sized businesses in Guyana.
The forum which is being organized by the Network of Empretec Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization comprising small and medium sized businessmen and women who benefited from training and technical assistance under the UNDP-funded EMPRETEC programme is designed to help equip participants to maximize business opportunities that have arisen out of the CSM. The EMPRETEC programme commenced in March 2003 and concluded in August last year.
Coordinator of the EMPRETEC Network and former Executive Director of EMPRETEC Guyana, Judy Joseph told Stabroek Business that the visit to Guyana by Ms Carol Ayong was part of an ongoing initiative by the organization to make its members more aware of the local and regional opportunities available to small and medium-sized businesses and to equip them with the knowledge to take advantage of those opportunities. She said that the value of the forum was that it would provide an opportunity for local small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to interface with someone who brought an expert perspective to the issue of the single market and its role in the development of small business in the region.
Ayong is a former Programme Manager of the Caricom Secretariat in Georgetown and the holder of a Masters Degree in International Finance and Planning.
Judy Joseph
Meanwhile Joseph told Stabroek Business next Friday's presentation was part of a broader initiative by the EMPRETEC Network to continue to provide specialized services to its members. She said that the organization already afforded its members affiliation to an international network of entrepreneurs who have benefited from similar USAID-funded EMPRETEC programmes in other countries. The organization also provides marketing support for its members as well as guidance in financial planning and business management.