Guyana as a Nearshore destination for BPO expansion evident – Dr Ramsaroop

Stakeholders of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) have been reassured that government will remain a partner to facilitate their further expansion in Guyana.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), Dr Peter Ramsaroop said government has money set aside for the construction of two call centres in Berbice, Region Six and Essequibo, Region Two.

Addressing a BPO stakeholders’ meeting on Thursday at the Pegasus Hotel, Dr Ramsaroop said government is ready to work with all clients to accelerate their expansion.

“We have access to fortune 500 companies and we are gaining more access as I travel with the President, meeting a lot of those companies. How do we then use that influence to push their outsourcing to Guyana through one of the operators, so that’s again where government can really help you finding new clients because ultimately, with finding new clients, its jobs for our people and that’s the president’s goal,” he stated.

Dr Ramsaroop said there are about 7,000 BPO seats in Guyana and in keeping with government’s commitment to create 50,000 jobs, the aim is to increase that number to 15,000 or more within two years, even as the market expands.

He called on BPOs in Guyana to work together and create better synergy to effectively market Guyana.

“And that’s the hope we get out of this meeting, that ultimately a BPO association could be formed. There are ways to share data, there’s a way to ensure there’s some career path for folks in this industry and the more you build that comradery, I think the more you would be able to control and predict the employment pressures that would happen as the hospitality and other sectors develop,” he said.

CEO of Midas BPO Inc Malcolm Sobers, said the meeting was a huge step towards expansion of BPOs in Guyana.

Midas BPO Inc. recently expanded its operations in Linden, Region 10, where over 100 jobs were created.

Sobers said he is excited about the opportunities and is on board with working with other BPOs to bring jobs to Guyana.

“We are excited about the opportunities that the government is initiating to both bring us as private operators and the industry stakeholders together so we could help improve this sector. Because as everyone would understand, many of our partner countries like Jamaica have 60,000 employees, we have the capacity to get close to that but we have to be organised and we have to have good government support and stakeholder collaboration,” Sobers explained.

CEO of Express International Inc Ken Deocharran, signaled his intention to expand operations to the Essequibo Coast. Express International Inc is located in the city and employs about 300 persons.

He said, “I feel that Essequibo has great potential simply because I have a lot of people from Essequibo currently in my organisation who are top performers, top managers of the company and they are just simply very dedicated to what they do, so I do see some potential there to be able to go into Essequibo, establish and see what the outcome is going to be.”

The PPP/C Administration since taking office, has welcomed investors to Guyana with the objective of creating jobs for Guyanese.