Foreign investors encouraged to set up shop in unique emerging sectors

DPI/GINA, Thursday, June 08, 2017

The Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) in collaboration with Nearshore and CX Guyana, today, engaged investors in the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) Industry to attract investors to the local economy, at the Marriott Hotel, Georgetown.

Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin told stakeholders that investing in Guyana will create more jobs for the vibrant workforce, especially since this country has the right ingredients to support the BPO industry.

The Minister highlighted that some of these ingredients include, the fact Guyana is the only English speaking country in South America, has political stability with a democratically elected government, enjoys a free market economy with stable macroeconomic indicators and a young and eager to work population.

The Business Minister noted that the BPO industry is vital especially since Guyana has been wrestling with the challenge of finding work for the thousands of young people who leave the education system each year. Government is committed to the creation of jobs, the Minister said, and therefore welcomes foreign investors who will provide decent jobs and respect the laws of Guyana.

Highlighting Guyana’s commitment towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development the minister noted that, “Guyana must seek to add value to and derive value from its natural environment and it needs to do so in a nondestructive manner.”

Our services sector need to expand to include specialised and innovative services related to our green environment…and this means that the BPO is not disadvantaged by environmentally friendly practices but the green pathway will function more effectively with reduced operating cost. Oil is big and we welcome it but it is not the only game in town. There are several sectors such as agro processing, forestry, pharmaceuticals, tourism and infrastructure development that could be developed to create economic growth in Guyana.”

United States Ambassador to Guyana, Perry Holloway highlighted that the US has shared strong relationships with Guyana for many years.

He encouraged the potential investors to, “Take the commitment of the government which maintains an attitude towards attracting investment, improving the ease of doing business in country and supporting the private sector in Guyana.”

Holloway pointed out that the wealth of developing new industries like petroleum to liberalisation of the telecommunications sector has a comparative advantage enjoyed by few countries in the region. “High literacy rate, diverse and young population cultural familiarity to the United States and English as a common language makes this the right time to invest in Guyana.”

Additionally, Minister of Public Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes said that investment into the BPO industry will help improve the emerging telecommunications sector. She stated that ,“government is more committed to ensuring that we’re putting the mechanisms in place to provide better services online to the citizens of Guyana and in the area of ensuring we have better bandwidth, secure and rampant internet access through the length and breadth of Guyana.”

Chief Executive Officer, GO-Invest, Owen Verwey said the BPO industry is expanding. He said the industry has six service providers with four major ones and two minor ones which provide service to the North American Region and the UK market.

“They continue to grow some of them have been providing these services in excess of three years which means there is some stability and confidence in the market and employees from Guyana continuing to provide those services,” Verwey explained.

For the year 2017, the investment portfolio (GO-Invest) is $139.8B in investments which will ensure greater diversification within the economy. The three day programme concludes on June 09,2017.

 

By: Ranetta La Fleur