The Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) is offering significantly improved service owing to a change in its administration, training and orientation, Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Manzoor Nadir says.

Go-Invest is now headed by former trade minister, Geoff Da Silva.

Speaking during the budget debate on Monday, Nadir said government was aggressively courting investment and a new regime for investors is currently being put in place.

In addition, government was focusing heavily on private sector agencies in an effort to boost investment and production.

Nadir, the only TUF Member of Parliament in the National Assembly but sitting on the government benches holding a ministerial portfolio, said that previously the bureaucracy that was present at Go-Invest was frustrating to investors.

He said that 94% of the respondents in a survey among persons who now use Go-Invest said that the overall quality of service of the agency was satisfactory or better. The rating more than doubled that of 1999. This rapid improvement, he noted, came about under the stewardship of his predecessor Da Silva who took up his post last year May. It was also due to a change in the attitude toward investment and a new clientele orientation which was emphasised. The survey was part of a USAID/GOG project report for international and local circulation.

He quoted from an edition of the Stabroek News in which an investor who recently commissioned a $2 billion project had said that under Da Silva Go-Invest had undergone an encouraging transformation.

Only last Friday, too, he said that he received a complimentary note in which an investor said that previously when he had applied for concessions to which he was entitled, the investment package took nine months. However, the investor's recent application only took nine weeks.

Nadir said also that government had signed on to no less than half-a-dozen programmes to train people to work with the private sector as part of its aggressive pursuit of investment and job creation.

He cited the Guyana Economic Opportunities Programme, funded to the tune of US$6 million, which will be accessed by private companies involved in the manufacturing sector and the US$730,000 project to help micro-enterprises in Guyana over a three-year period. This project was being implemented by the Foreign Affairs Ministry with funds made available by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He also noted the setting up of the Guyana Training Agency which was a private sector/European Union/Government of Guyana partnership programme in which 1.8 million Euros will be expended in tutoring over the next three years. In addition, he said that a significant portion of the US$12.5 million-Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP) in Linden will go toward training.

In the area of training for tourism development, he said that the OAS has a US$50,000 community-based tourism project. The Caribbean Project for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC) programme being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is also working with the tourism sector as well as assisting the Guyana Manufacturing Association (GMA) to increase its competitiveness and bring its manufacturers up to scratch.

These grants and loans were part of programmes which, he said, did not drop out of the skies but came about through government's efforts to help the private sector.

Nadir said that government has begun to provide land and was helping to develop the skills of the people. Every student of economics, he said, learns that land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship are essential for investment along with a risk-taking ability.

Speaking about the development of new industrial estates, Nadir said that while government cannot boast of producing one square inch of industrial land, it can boast of better utilisation of those now in various stages of development.

Among the needs being met by the investors on industrial estates was the granting of ninety-nine year leases with a rental cost for one acre of industrial land being "only $44,000 a year".

Those industrial estates now boast of paved roads, concrete drains, independent supply of water, and transformers for electricity provided by government. Government, he said, was working with the investors to ensure they can make a decent return on their investment.

The result of all the efforts were the many vacancies being advertised in the newspapers, Nadir noted. And to boost the tourism and hospitality sector, he disclosed that government was in the process of opening a hospitality school.

Poverty reduction cannot be achieved on a sustainable basis by borrowing and handouts but by investors making a profit on their investments and paying their fair share of taxes, Nadir added.