Lethem industrial estate to accommodate 70 businesses

GINA, Guyana, Thursday 17, 2016

A new model has been chosen for the Lethem Industrial Estate in Region Nine that will accommodate 70 businesses, with four of those being anchor tenants (larger businesses).

Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin during an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA), said the site is scheduled to be completed late next year or early in 2018.

The four anchor tenants will be the catalyst for some of the other businesses that will occupy the estate, depending on the type and nature of the four anchor tenants, the Business Minister said.

The Ministry of Business is looking at the Brazilian market because of Lethem’s close proximity to that country. The Minister believes it “is the most viable market setting for Guyanese products coming out of that particular industrial estate.”

Gaskin told GINA that the Ministry has a Bilateral Agreement and a Partial Scope Agreement with Brazil, which allows preferential access to a number of goods and items from Guyana. The Ministry will need to examine those items and devise a strategy for linking opportunities with the market and what is produced at the industrial estate, Gaskin explained.

The Minister pointed out that the incomplete project was inherited from the previous administration, and the Ministry has every intention of completing it.

“Things don’t happen randomly, you have to have a vision, to know what it is you are trying to achieve” Gaskin said.

The estate was scheduled to be completed this year, but had to be reviewed because work appeared to have being done haphazardly, and the estate did not cater for small business. There were other major weaknesses identified.

The Ministry of Business has responsibility for industrial estates at Lethem, Belvedere, Eccles and Coldingen. The latter two have a combined 120 developed plots. They have close to 60 developed estates providing jobs for about 4000 Guyanese.   The main industries are wood-processing, cement and block-making, food processing, fish processing, furniture manufacturing, metal fabrication and pharmaceuticals.

In the 2016 Budget, $212M was allocated for developing and fixing the industrial estates at Belvedere and Lethem.

 

 

By: Gabreila Patram