THE 2002/2003 telephone directory project was launched yesterday afternoon at the Guyenterprise compound on Almond Street, Queenstown, Georgetown, with a view to getting it ready and available to customers by July.

The project was launched by the Guyenterprise Advertising Agency under the theme "Come out and be seen".

The directories, which will be printed in the United States, will be produced by Guyenterprise while the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) will have the responsibility of providing the listings of the blue, white, pink, green and yellow pages.

Head of Guyenterprise, Mr. Vic Insanally told those gathered for the launching ceremony that the 2002/2003 directory is expected to contain the listings for some 80,000 lines.

He noted that this is "a significant jump" from when the advertising agency started printing the directory in 1992 at just over the 12,000 to 15,000 listing mark.

Insanally, however, noted that one dilemma currently faced by the production team is how to accommodate cellular users and the number of copies that will have to be printed.

According to him, the directories still have to be printed overseas since there is no company in Guyana or within the Caribbean area currently capable of printing a telephone directory.

R.R. Donelly and Sons Company in Florida, the largest commercial printer in North America, will again be printing the directories.

Insanally said there will be a departure from the normal way of producing the directory this year.

"We usually attempt to get a telephone directory out for the beginning of the new calendar year (but) this year we are following the trend in the rest of the Caribbean and starting now with a view of getting it out sometime in the month of July," he said.

According to him, there are lots of reasons for this.

"We felt there was a lot that was going to happen towards the end of this year that would need to be incorporated into the new directory...," he said.

Among those present were Prime Minister Sam Hinds, special invitees and a number of officials from the telephone company.

GT&T Deputy General Manager, Administration, Mr. Terry Holder appealed to the business community to give the kind of support that such a directory deserved.

"We are hoping that once again we will be able to produce a document that we are particularly proud of; we are particularly proud of the quality of work we have done over the past nine years and we believe that Guyanese are also proud of the document," Holder said.

"We hope that this time around we don't have a document with any mistakes or omissions and we have a process on that gives you the subscriber the opportunity to help us get it right through a verification process," he added.