Good move.

These foreign thieves are shipping the wood abroad for processing so that they don't have to employ many Guyanese folks in desperate need of a job. It is time they find out that some Guyanese are ready to sort them out if things don't improve.

I agree, maybe capital is an issue.  The Govt needs to understand their business imperative before making demands.  I'm sure there are things the Govt could do to incentivize added-value in Guyana.  But let's give them a chance to present the case for or against.

Kudos to Trotman.

Granger, Trotman and Roopnarine are the best minds in APNU. The rest can go sell fish at the Market.

"Both have been spoken to already. Both have government a commitment that within a matter of months they will be addressing the value-added concern. I expect that before the end of the year the nation will start to see value added products being produced by those two companies." Trotman said that if they failed to honor their commitments this time around their contract" will be reviewed for termination."

If they fail or seek extensions as I expect they will given their practices elsewhere there should be no investigations to review contracts. They should be summarily booted out.

It takes more than 4 months to set up  a wood processing plant. They made Trotman a fool.

Whatever they plan to make, curing the wood takes years.

Once again a government of Guyana is lacking in Business Knowledge.

They would never agree to prepping Wamara or Bulletwood since it would immediately expose how much we are being robbed. They will always seek exemptions on the hardwoods on one pretext or another and any facilities they build here would be for plywood and other compressed materials as their idea of finished products. They will never build kilns here necessary to reduce the woods to 6 or 8 percent moisture content that can be used in building fine furniture. They will continue to ship choice woods and try to skim by through placating the regulators with some facilities to make plywood. We need to make it clear in no uncertain terms that no unfinished lumber will ever leave our shores.Further, all hardwoods is to exit through one processing facility

So does the wood magically cure en route to India or China?

We need to find out their justification for shipping raw timber and processing it there. We should not prejudge as businesses will make decisions which are most profitable.  Sometimes the "apparent" is not what it seems to the simple minded.

Fool, your hate is overwhelming.

My guess, the logs are not processed right away-stockpiled. Alibaba, now sells logs as a commodity. 

Producing consumer goods for the West takes alot of skills and mechanization.

Guyana is not equipped for such large scale ventures-at this time. Our governments have never grasped the reality of it. They talk of value added, but they really doan know what is involved. And how the Chinese go about it.

The current government should undertake an effort to promote at the local level value added processes. Develop Guyanese. 

stop your prancing nonsense fool. . . local processing is part of the AGREEMENT, not an option!

Just mere words. No substance. Sey anything a fool would like to hear.

We need to do no such thing.  If they want to destroy our rainforest and leave pennies behind, then they need to go elsewhere.  As is Guyana is getting scant benefit from these predators, who also exploit their Guyanese employees.

Some one needs to tell the Chinese that slavery in Guyana ended in 1838.

Countries only develop when they have value added production.  Processing allows more employment in Guyana, and a more valuable export product.

Baseman, gold prices are dropping, and now the failure of the PPP to diversify the economy, and develop more value added is becoming evident.  But you will blame black people for that.

Let us take wood products. If house hold furnishings are manufactured. Who will sell it and who would buy it. We talking about mass production. Do Guyanese Foreign based buys Guyanese products.

Seignet, I am no expert on this, but I know there is a world market for finely made wood products, especially from purple heart etc. Furniture, carvings, etc. are all in demand and they are not cheap in developed countries.

Why do we not help encourage local craftsmen to form businesses and create products for these markets? Guyanese have always been good at wood work and carpentry. The government's role would be to find markets for our products. They need to set up a framework for local woodworking businesses to connect with businesses in developed countries that carry these types of products. 

We cannot rely solely on overseas Guyanese and kanta Guyanese for this market. We have to learn to take our products directly to the markets of developed nations. I don't know if you get the jist of what I'm saying.

Tropical trees aren't like the pine forests of North America.  When trees are cut down it takes a long time to be replaced.  These trees are valuable, which is why the Chinese and Indians are targeting.  This isn't cheap wood.

So if Guyana cannot find high value uses, leave them in the ground until we do.  And in fact I am sure that we can do this, if we think about it.

Yes that is PPP thinking.  When they market Guyanese products and services in NY they confined it to Richmond Hill.

Tropical woods are in high demand for all sorts of design purposes, but these PPP clowns would rather the Chinese make the money from processing the wood in China for further export to the USA.

There is a whole architect/design community in NYC.  Has any one approached them?

A mahagony tree is worth millions of US dollars in China.

Carib, Mitwah,

The challenge is to determine how we can maximally monetize these natural resources bearing in mind they are not easily replaced. Does anyone know if we are receiving funds from Norway for these resources as part of the "green" initiative?

Yuh know Norton seys, we should sell the logs because Guyanese use it for firewood anyway. I do not agree with him.

Caribj, do you think the luxury US furniture manufacturer would leave an organic gold mine in Guyana, have it go to China, then buy it back all the the way in China?  The market seem more biased to Asia!

The government must believe the trees have value when harvested. And set up a government department dedicated to enhancing it.

Bai, my best advise on this, send a quick email to Bharat Jagdeo!!

I have not seen any furniture made from purpleheart in the market place.

A lot are used in interior finishes in luxury homes in Asia, not only furniture.

I have. And it's very expensive. Lots of the high end homes in the Caribbean islands owned by wealthy Americans have the purple heart furnishings. And they even tell you it was imported from Guyana.

Perhaps, Trotman believes that a project can be constructed, tested and then be in operation in a short time.

We are essentially saying the same thing but my more granular view is that we need to determine what value we are dealing with either by number of trees per type, acreage or some other metric. Then assign a value to it (e.g. Mits says its millions USD per Mahogany tree).

Once we have a value, how do we monetize it keeping in mind it is a finite resource. I think this is where your govt. dept. dedicated to enhancing it comes into play. It's easy to chop down trees, make furniture and craft but are we able to do it consistently and sell it for more than the trees are worth? N.B - there are training, equipment, startup, shipping, WASTE (a big cost factor) and other costs to get this going which come off the sales.

Is it more worthwhile to keep the trees and have the ABC nations pay us for them? I know we have some sort of arrangement in place but I think it was suspended because of bai shan lin's misadventures. I'm not sure. Secondly, does this agreement with Norway cover all these trees or only a certain section of the rain forest?

One of the best ways to make money is via a royalty. Collecting from the environmentalists might be the best way to monetize this. Furthermore, the more trees we plant and grow the more funds we get. Over the long term the "royalty" for keeping the trees instead of cutting them down may be the best way to monetize our assets.

Is TK around to expound?

The Indians may kiln dry. The Chinese keep these prized woods for many years to desiccate naturally. They have huge reserves of these products from all over the world. They can however kiln dry them if needed and the process would be quicker

That wood has very coarse grains. I know it used alot for accents. To get a polished finish, it take lots of elbow grease.

And yet the buy it from Guyana for a mere $100, and basemen seems happy that they should pocket the rest.

 So 2 Guyanese find work to chop down the tree, and 2 more to load the ship, and then we wonder why Guyanese are so poor, and yoyth unemployment so high.

Ghana insists that no wood will be allowed out of that country unless there is some value added, and this in response to the Asians.

So why not make it easy.  Sell processed woods out of Guyana, maybe even panelling, or some thing closer to end use.

But you wish Guyana to be described as "one of the poorest countries in the Americas", so feel free to suppport the export of raw logs with minimal value added.

I endorse Trotman 100%.  You dont as you wish Maduro to invade.

Perhaps the Asians need to tell Guyanese why they promised to perform value added production since the PPP gave them their licenses, and many years later, show no evidence that they are going to do as they said that they would do.

Trotman is telling them to live up to the conditions that they promised to undertake.

In fact failing to perform value added can be seen as a breach of contract, enabling the gov't to void the license.  Trotman is giving them time to come with a plan.  These Asians can do what they want very quickly, but they want to treat Guyana this way, as the Africans tossed them out, as have the Indonesians.  Brazil will not tolerate this, so that leaves Guyana.

Its really sad that Guyana is such a racially divided nation that the Indo KKK would actively support the exploitation of Guyana just because they vex that the PPP no longer runs their Little Indesh.

The specific issue is steps to provide this aspect of the contract.

We now need to wait until after the designated period to see what develops.

So why havent they already done so, and now need to be told to do so by Trotman.  Last year ordinary Lindeners were complaining that the Chinese were selling raw logs and that few Guyanese were benefitting from this trade.  The Chinese were also destroying the roads, and not contributing to their upkeep.

Linden would have been a perfect site for such a plant, given its role as gate way to the interior.

This is just another PPP mess that must be cleaned up. They awarded contracts to these huge Asians companies, telling Guyanese that they could expect significant employment and value added production.  Instead they took bribes to look the other way.

Immaterial and irrelevant comments; as usual.

Simply ...

1. There is a directive on the item.

2. One needs to wait to see what develops.