By Sue-Ann Wayow
LAND, fresh water and expertise.
Those are some of the reasons why investors should place their money on Guyanese grounds.
Last week, Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture Zulkifar Mustapha attempted to woo nationals to invest in his country being referred to as the food hub of the region.
Mustapha spoke at length about the possibilities of a growing agriculture sector at an event hosted by the Couva/Pt Lisas Chamber of Industry and Commerce at the Chamber’s building in Couva on Tuesday.
He was accompanied by Guyana’s Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud who also spoke.
Mustapha, who spoke with the media after his presentation, said starting with a capital of TT$150,000, an investor can get a sizeable return on his investment.
“I want to believe that you can start with that low from about $5 million to $10 million Guyanese dollars.”
One Trinidad and Tobago dollar is equivalent to approximately $30 Guyanese dollars and investments can be made using any currency, he said.
The Government of Guyana is on an active mission to urge businessmen and women from the Caribbean region to invest in their country and to encourage CARICOM nations to keep foreign exchange within the region.
Mustapha emphasised that it was not a Guyanese investment programme but a regional one.
A regional agriculture investment conference is being organised for May 19 to 21, to facilitate intense consultations between the public and private sectors on investment opportunities.
The event to be held in Georgetown will form part of a wider plan, as the CARICOM advances efforts to reduce the region’s multi-billion-dollar food import bill by 25 % by 2025.
That announcement was made earlier this month by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
Mustapha said the food import bill regionally was way above average and new methodologies needed to be implemented to encourage regional diet and food purchase as opposed to importing from the US and other markets.
The Russia/Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic were not helping to bring the food prices down and Guyana was now embarking on planting corn on a large scale so as to be able to provide feed for animals Mustapha said with the price of wheat skyrocketing.
This will enable the country to become self-sufficient in poultry production.
He said, “What is happening in Ukraine and Russia will reduce production further, for example, wheat production would be reduced by 30 % this year.
“The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) has concluded that food production will fall short by almost 30% this year. If the world will fall short by 30 % in food production this year, then there are a lot of opportunities that you can invest in, not only in T&T, but Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean.”
Mustapha said feasibility studies have been done on several areas of the agricultural sector which were available to investors and advisors would also be guiding.
He said the investment will be matched with capital meaning that if someone has a certain amount of money to invest, that person will be given value for money.
The minister emphasised several points including that oil and gas was not the only sector the country should rely on.
“The most important thing for us is food security,” he said.
To ensure that food security and reduce the regional food import bill by 2025 by 25%, a ministerial task force has been set up by CARICOM. Mustapha is the chairman of that committee.
Recognising the importance of other sectors, Mustapha in answering a question from the audience said because of the prominence of the oil and gas sector, several persons rushed towards it and the government was in the process of making the agriculture sector more lucrative especially for the younger generation.
Guyana was in the process of setting up several agro-processing facilities and a number of Trinidad and Tobago companies have already begun investing in Guyana.
Three major canals have also been built in three of the country’s main agricultural districts, the minister said as the nation prone to flooding attempts to have massive drainage infrastructure.
Mustapha listed a number of incentives to grow public/private partnerships and to reduce the burden on farmers and investors.
These include:
- Waiving the import duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) on agriculture machinery;
- Reducing land rental charges;
- Giving tax concessions;
- Wavering import duty on chemicals;
- Developing more agricultural lands;
- Reducing energy cost;
- Expanding drainage and irrigation; and
- Experimenting with new crops.
Mustapha stated, “As a country, we are learning all the time…We have to change the way we think. We have to change our attitude.”
Enhancing the sugar industry
Aquaculture was another area that was promising, Guyana will also be enhancing its sugar industry, there was a viable market with the hotel industry and most importantly, foreign exchanged will be saved. These were all benefits of an improved agriculture sector, the minister said.
“Not only does Guyana want to be a primary agriculture producer, we also want to create value-added products for domestic, regional and Latin American markets… Guyana is developing the infrastructure for transportation that would link Guyana with Brazil, Suriname and French Guiana where the market far exceeds the Caribbean region,” Mustapha added.
Referring to the reopening of the sugar industry, the minister said, it created communities.
“Sugar is based on a community. When sugar is closed or something goes wrong to sugar, the community tends to suffer, not only the workers directly but indirectly – the seamstress, the taxi-driver, the shop-keeper. The whole village economy died a sudden death.”
He also said all the corporate social programmes that were organised by Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) – came under Central Government and funds had to be allocated from the treasury.
Now that activity is again happening, Mustapha said the government was witnessing life again in those communities.
Anyone willing to invest in Guyana can register online for the conference in May or access further information from the Guyanese Embassy in Trinidad.
