Second draft of Business Ministry’s strategic plan up for consultations

Georgetown, GINA August, 03 2016

The Ministry of Business presented its second draft of its strategic action plan for the period 2016-2020 today, at a consultation forum at the Arthur Chung International Conference Centre.

The plan outlines four objectives and the strategies that are to be undertaken to achieve these goals. The plan projects that Guyana’s business environment will see major developments throughout the period 2016 to 2020.

At the forum, stakeholders from both the public and private sectors were encouraged to give their views and input on the presented document.

Minister of Business and Tourism, Dominic Gaskin, addressing the gathering before the presentation of the plan, noted that his ministry cannot achieve the goals as stated in the action plan on its own, but needs to collaborate with other entities.

“A lot of what we need to do does not fall within our jurisdiction to actually get the work done. This means that we have to get things onto the agenda of other government agencies and ministries in order to achieve our own objectives,” Minister Gaskin explained.

The Business Minister also pointed out the need for the plan to be presented to the relevant stakeholders in the business community. Minister Gaskin added that, “It is important that we know that what we’re doing actually makes sense, and is relevant to our mandate and our areas of responsibility, and we need to know how effective the actions that we are doing are, in addressing the problems we are trying to resolve.”

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Consultant and former Minister of Government in Ecuador, Nathalie Cely worked with the Ministry of Business and Tourism and the private sector to prepare and complete the Strategic Action Plan 2016-2020.

Cely, in her presentation stated that, “Guyana needs to be put into context concerning what’s going on in the world right now, what are the trends, what are the challenges, (and) what are the opportunities in the global arena.”

The presentation highlighted challenges the country faces, the ministry’s vision for private/public collaboration, as well as policies that are needed to be created and implemented in the business environment.

Objectives

Cely explained the four objectives outlined in the strategic action plan 2016-2020, the first of which is to increase sustainable private sector investment through the design and implementation of a national investment policy. To achieve this, the ministry will address the critical factors for investment attraction locally, design strategies and develop a framework of incentives for investors.

The second objective aims to improve the ease of doing business through the development and prioritisation of key reforms and structured national collaboration. There must be an implementation of a single window for trade, a sub-committee referred to as the public-private mechanism for this development and provision of statistics and analysis for businesses.

The third objective will see the increase of value-added production and exports through the development of a national export strategy and an enhanced quality infrastructure. This will depend on a value-added export strategy, improved quality standards and an improved national quality infrastructure.

The fourth objective is to support small business development through effectively implementing the provisions of the Small Business Act and intensifying the services of the Small Business Bureau. This will see extensive training being done throughout the country for small business owners.

The Ministry of Business will work towards achieving the objectives outlined in its Strategic Action Plan upon the presentation of the finalised document which will be produced after consultation.

The second draft of the strategic action plan is available on the Ministry’ s website.