by Andrew Richards
Stabroek News
July 29, 2001

The private sector's top brass has painted a picture of gloom for the country's productive sector and president of the Forest Products Association (FPA), John Willems, issued a call to parliament to initiate strategies to spur recovery.

"They [parliamentarians] are our elected leaders. We need them to work together," he said. "We need them to find financial expertise with minds open to finding ways to help Guyana and the private sector."

At a press conference hosted by the FPA on Friday at Main Street Plaza Hotel, Willems pointed out that parliament was the seat of the government and they must be made aware of the problems being experienced by industry.

Willems said he was aware that businesses in the timber sector were faced with a severe cash flow problem which indicated a collapse of the industry.

He said it was obvious that rice, sugar, gold mining and bauxite had similar problems.

Willems said the question must be asked as to why these sectors were in trouble.

It must also be queried as to whether the leaders of the nation were doing anything about the plight, he said.

Willems stated it was the job of the parliamentarians to find new ways to encourage cost effective production and new financial approaches on a national basis.

The FPA had invited representatives from each of the parliamentary parties to the press conference.

Representatives of donor agencies were also invited to attend.

Officials from chambers of commerce from across Guyana gave presentations on the state of the sectors in their particular areas.

Willems said the aid donors had to realise that the policies which were sold to them, or that they insisted on, were not appropriate to the developing world.

Using Guyana as an example, the FPA president maintained that the benefits of endless resources and generous debt write-offs had not trickled down to the productive sectors.

Senior vice president of FPA and chief executive officer (CEO) of timber company A. Mazaharally and Sons (AMS) Ltd, Yacoob Ally, told the press conference that the timber industry had never seen worse times - not even in the period of the world wars.

Ally disclosed he had had to close down his sawmill in Kwebana in North West District two years ago.

His company's sawmill at Skull Point in the Lower Mazaruni had been closed six months ago.

His Supenaam Timber and Trading Co was also closed and another sawmill at Supenaam on the Essequibo Coast was described by Ally as "limping."

He noted that for over three decades the cost of foreign exchange for retooling the industry had been prohibitive.

This resulted in the machinery and equipment becoming outdated.

"Government needs to facilitate cheap capital for [the] retooling of the industry and suspend the restriction/ban on the exportation of logs until mills are rendered competitive by retooling and downstream improvement," Ally stated.

Locust and crabwood logs and rough sawn lumber are restricted for export by government, and greenheart logs are banned.

Ally said AMS had substantial quantities of these species available but the demand of the local market was grossly inadequate.

The CEO of AMS suggested that consideration should be given for the use of greenheart and kakarali in the construction of sea defences as was done in Europe.

Chairman of the National Association of Regional Chambers of Commerce (ARCC), Ramdial Bookmohan, declared that "economic illness" had spread through every sector of the national economy.

He was of the view that the remedy lay in a true partnership between business and government.

"The effective government must be the facilitator - there to provide the tools the private sector needs to construct a competitive economy with increasing jobs and income and to create a progressive and open environment," he said.

Bookmohan asserted that the ARCC had repeatedly stated the need for Guyana to access Mercosur's market of 240 million people.

He said this would attract manufacturing jobs and offset the drawbacks of the small domestic market.

The private sector needed to work together with government and donor agencies to ensure that aid was used productively, he said.

He said it was essential that there be lower taxation with a wider base.

Bookmohan noted the business summit with President Bharrat Jagdeo had been held about two years ago, and the actions versus commitment at that forum needed to be revisited.

Business needed competitive borrowing rates, he said, and questioned the reason why Guyana's rates were 19 per cent when it was around 6 per cent in the United States and almost zero in Japan.

Bookmohan said government had to get to the point where it could speak about what it had done for the business community.