Executive Forum 2001
Montreux, Switzerland
26-29 September 2001

Interviews

Guyana: investment to alleviate poverty Geoffrey da Silva, Chief Executive Officer, Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST)

Da Silva: I think the experience has been a very good one, actually enlightening, because we have had an export strategy, a traditional one of exporting primary commodities to preferential markets that are quickly disappearing. What it means is that policy-makers at the government level and in the private sector now have to re-examine in a very urgent way our export strategy. So when we called our first meeting in January 2001, there was a good response from the public sector leaders and the government ministries and agencies. We wanted to be private-sector driven. We are the facilitators. We keep it going, that is – the government. In the discussions the private sector basically identifies its needs. We have about 25 people attending the meetings every two months. We have brief presentations. Then we break out into smaller groups to address a number of issues. They come back after an hour and a half and do a summary. That is put into the minutes and circulated. What we are trying to do is ensure that the meetings are productive and effective: that it’s not just two people talking. It’s not a PR exercise. We haven’t actually publicized it. Only the private sector organizations and public agencies are aware of it. Now there is a new Minister of Foreign Trade (I was the former Minister) and he likes the idea and is continuing with it. The big question that we are facing now is that we need some technical expertise, someone who is very experienced in working in a number of situations and countries with developing a trade support network. We are very happy that ITC invited us. We really appreciate. We took the initiative in Guyana on our own to establish an investment office, which I am very happy about, based on materials which we got from ITC. We looked at it on our own, liked what we saw and decided to go ahead.

The new connection that we are developing is to link investment and trade and export strategy. We are in the process of developing a new investment strategy. There have been many reports and analyses done over the years but now we are talking concretely and seriously. Our feeling is that the export strategy has to inform the investment strategy. If we identify a number of key areas – that the private sector has identified – for an export strategy, that will help government as well with regard to the types of incentives that we will be giving to companies, the types of infrastructural work that we have to do, and things like that.

So I still attend those trade support network meetings, representing the investment agency, and our agency also combines export promotion – we work a lot with exporters. I know that this process takes a while. We understand that in the end it will depend on a few key players who are committed, and our main job is to convince people, to make them understand what it is we are trying to do. We don’t want people to agree with everything in the strategy, but to understand why it is important for us to have a strategy to move the country forward, so that we don’t operate on an ad hoc basis. I find it really exciting. We look forward to making a difference, if not in our term at the agencies or wherever in organizations but maybe 10 years down the road: we can look back and say that helped in the process of moving Guyana to an economy where we are exporting value-added products. That means we have to focus on higher earning segments of the international market, getting bigger returns for our country, which means we will be able to pay our people more. That in the end is why I am in all of this, because it is about people, alleviating poverty, and ensuring that our Guyanese people can be earning much more for the products that we produce and raise our standard of living.