'GUYANA OPEN FOR INVESTMENT’
By Ashlee Cox, 2/7/2015, Source - Barbados Advocate
WHEN it comes to the idea of Barbados and the Caribbean looking to invest in Guyana, Brigadier (Retired) David Granger, MSS, MP, Opposition Leader of Guyana, has noted that the door is indeed open.
“The door is open, there is no hindrance, there is no obstruction and we hope to facilitate this kind of investment.
As you know, there are many Chinese investors coming into the Region at present and Guyana has a very long border with Brazil, we have a 1100 km-long border with Brazil, there are a lot of Brazilian miners, the Russian miners in the bauxite industry, so hey, why not Caribbean as investors?” he noted, as he spoke to the media during a brief press interview preceding the launch of the inaugural Caribbean Congress of Community Practitioners, which was held recently under the theme, “Unlocking the Region’s Future”.
As noted by Granger, they welcomed the Caribbean investment and it would be one of the policies of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Administration to encourage greater Caribbean investment.
“We feel that Guyana is a good destination, with some issues that our party will resolve, particularly security, but in terms of investment, the door is open,” he noted.
According to Granger, who is confident that his party will win this upcoming elections on May 11 of this year, there were two things he would hope to strengthen, which would be education and the Caribbean integration ties as it pertained to economics.
“We have lost a lot of our educated professionals through migration and we believe that one of the most important elements of our new policy, under Partnership for Nationality, would be to strengthen education ties with the rest of the Caribbean. We also aim at strengthening economic ties, because we feel that the thrust of Caribbean integration has slowed and Guyana is huge country... in comparison to the other Caribbean territories and we feel that some of our economic resources could be deployed to give the Caribbean as a whole, a greater thrust towards integrating their economies,” he stated.
As explained by Granger, many Caribbean countries were suffering from youth unemployment and such a thrust in the areas of education economy would assist in solving those issues.
Hamilton Lashley (left), of the Hamilton Lashley Human Development Foundation, has a conversation with Guyana’s Opposition Leader, Retired Brigadier David Granger.