Business Ministry’s Strategic Plan to emphasise developments in manufacturing sector
Georgetown, GINA, August 10, 2016
The Ministry of Business will be placing emphasis on the manufacturing sector as the Strategic Business Plan is being reviewed by the Private Sector, pending its finalisation.
The Ministry’s 2016-2020 plan will focus on the manufacturing sector with the aim of modernising the sector and creating markets. While presenting the strategic plan, recently, its author, Nathalie Cely highlighted key areas that will contribute to the sector’s growth.
Cely said, “Technology will drive a new manufacturing revolution and there are many, the speed of technology is changing and will provide different patterns of technology. A lot of people were talking about manufacturing 4.0 where you will need the skills of production they used to have in the past to make some process of production being more efficient.”
The consultant also stated that for the period January to June 2016, the local manufacturing sector has been affected by the decline in demands for the products on both the local and international markets. She noted that this calls for development of the local market.
“Guyana is a small country and that’s always been a problem not having enough big markets to first start manufacturing for your local market and then exporting, that’s usually the good that developing economies have taken. You start developing your internal market and then you export but Guyana cannot afford to do that because the internal market it is pretty small,” Cely noted
Cely also spoke of human resource development, an important aspect that drives productivity. To accommodate modernisation, the local human resource must be developed, providing the requisite skills, thus creating a 21st century manufacturing sector, the consultant said.
“Technology is available, and that technology you can import that, and it’s cheaper now more than ever. You have the power of Iclouding, you have the power of producing 3D printing, but then you need to have the capabilities, you need to have the new skills which are very difficult to acquire. You need to have not only numeracy or literacy capabilities you need to have digital capabilities in order to be able to capture that knowledge and put it into practice,” the consultant explained.
The Ministry of Finance’s half-year report stated that the local manufacturing sector contracted by 14.1% during the first half of 2016 due to the reduced market share from higher imports of legal and smuggled products.