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Manufacturers Association blames GRA for increasing costs
President of CGX Energy Incorporated of Canada, Kerry Sully hands over an award to the secretary of Sterling Products Limited to Deodat Indar.
One of the issues affecting the Guyana Manufactures and Service Association (GMSA) is the inefficiency and significant costs associated with the delivery of vital services by the Guyana Revenue Authority and other Regulatory Agencies.
This was disclosed at the 15th GSMA Annual Presentation Awards Dinner at the Princess Hotel, Thursday night.
In attendance at the annual feature were members of the Diplomatic Corps, President and Chief Executive Officer of CGX Energy Incorporated of Canada, Kerry Sully, GSMA Board Members, prospective members, special invitees, and friends of the association.
Banks DIH won the President’s Award for export achievement at the event, while the conglomerate was among several companies such as Namilco and GT&T that were awarded for their contributions to the marketing and services sector.
According to Guyana Manufactures and Service Association (GMSA) President Clinton Williams, a report published by the Government Statistical Bureau states that the Manufacturing Sector has shown flat growth, while the Services Sector has recorded growth of 2.7 per cent for the first half of 2010.
He said in response to Guyana’s Agricultural thrust and concomitant Food Security needs, GMSA in partnership with NARI has recently completed an Agro-processing Manual for the Fruits and Vegetables Sub-sector, which was officially handed over to the Minister of Agriculture.
In addressing some pertinent issues affecting development and growth of the Manufacturing and Services Sector, the GMSA President said that there is a relatively high cost and frequent unavailability of electricity, inadequate access and high costs both for investment funding and trade financing, sufficiency and quality of Technical and Managerial Skills, Legal requirements for the establishment of new business, inefficiency and significant costs associated with the delivery of vital services by the Revenue Authority and other Regulatory Agencies, inadequate incentives for manufacturers investing in new/more efficient technology, and effective enforcement of existing copyright, anti-smuggling and tax evasion laws.
Williams recommended that there should be earliest implementation of the Single Window Automated Processing System (SWAPS) currently being pursued by the NCSU and Private Sector, a “Value chain” approach to product development, the Creation and or empowerment of parastatal agencies, such as GOINVEST, to act as a one-stop-shop/clearing house for services needed for establishing new businesses; Investing in remote-sensing technology to improve the monitoring of national borders and smuggling routes to reduce the hemorrhaging of profit by local manufacturers caused by unfair competition.
Increased Manpower employment could be seen as a more long term strategy as such ~ persons would have to be trained and then deployed, the Establishment of inward and outward Investment/Export Promotion Missions as mechanisms for securing joint venture partners and expansion of trade, and the Expansion of the concept of Call Centres Trade in Services Programmers to the establishment of Export Promotion Zone (EPZ) as a catalyst to the acceleration of export of products whether via Semi Knock Down (SKD) or Complete Knock Down (CKD) basis.
The GMSA mandate was expanded some five years ago from representation of bona fide manufacturing companies to include telecommunications, energy, water, transportation, and information technology, and other services of which have a direct impact on the performance of the manufacturing Sector.
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