TRADE FACILITATION VS TRADE IN WEAPONS

May 10, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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If you walk along Regent Street, you will observe that some vendors who sell on the pavements store their stocks in cardboard barrels, the ones that Guyanese overseas use to send gifts for their families back home. This suggests that goods being pedaled on the pavements are shipped to Guyana in these barrels, and could have been smuggled into the country in this way.
A few weeks ago, I stood in front of a business which was being established in the city. Internal works to the building were being done for what is likely to be a small store. A hire car pulled up with a barrel in the back seat. This was rolled into the store. Later another barrel was brought.
I do not know what was in the barrels, but I asked myself why would the owner have stored whatever it was in that type of container. If he had bought these items locally, he would have not had to bring them in barrels. I presumed – I cannot be sure – that the items that were being used in the construction for the internal works were shipped to Guyana in those barrels.
I have also seen barrels within some business stores. Again, I have had to ask myself why would businesses have to transport and store items in barrels. The only conclusion that I could reach – and this may be pure speculation – is that some businesses are using barrels to bring their goods into the country.
It is well known that many private citizens are recipients of barrels each year from their relatives in the United States. Some of them also receive boxes and crates in which is packed all manner of items, most of which are readily available in Guyana. Yet persons overseas opt to send these items as a form of remittance to assist their relatives.
They should ideally send the money via the money transfer agencies. But many of them prefer to send items, because they are of the mistaken view that it is cheaper for their family to get the foodstuff and clothes in the barrels than it would if they had to buy these in the local stores.
Secondly, some persons overseas prefer to send the physical items rather than the cash, because they are not certain that their relations in Guyana are going to use the cash for the upkeep of their homes. They are fearful that their Guyanese relations are going to splurge on the cash. Thus they prefer to send the food and the clothing.
This is understandable, since we have a lot of slackers in Guyana who prefer to stay home all day, rather than go and look for work. They prefer to stay at home and depend on their relatives overseas. The overseas relatives are not stupid and instead of sending cash, they prefer to send things that can be used in the house.
This preference has led to the sustaining of the trade in remittance goods such as barrels and boxes, and now we are told, crates, with food and clothing items. The danger, of course, is that other things can be transported in these containers, as was evident on Friday last, when weapons and ammunition were discovered in a crate at a city wharf.
And of course, as mentioned above, there is some suspicion that vendors and businesses may be bringing goods into the country using the very containers that are used in the main for remittance items.
One would have assumed that with the liberalization of trade and with almost every conceivable item now available in Guyana, that there would have been a fall-off in the number of barrels being sent. It does not seem so. In fact, it looks as if Guyanese overseas are sending more items via barrels and boxes, and crates than ever before.
In fact, a new form of trade has developed. It is called e-trade. This allows persons to but their own items online and have these items shipped in small packages to their homes. This development will further increase the number of small packages that are being sent to Guyana and thus place pressure on the authorities to balance the need to guard against illegal items coming into the country, with the need to facilitate the clearance of these goods.
Trade facilitation is now an economic mantra. The theory argues that one of the ways to spur business growth is to reduce bottlenecks to trade, including speeding up the clearance of goods. The removal of bottlenecks, it is argued, will slash business costs and allow for a higher velocity in business transactions and dollar turnover.
This translates to higher business and economic performance. The removal of bottlenecks also reduces corruption in trade. The downside, of course, is that trade facilitation can open the door to increased smuggling of illegal items such as weapons.
Obtaining the right balance between trade facilitation and guarding against smuggling is a challenge that still bedevils most countries. But it is of acute concern to those countries such as Guyana, in which there are high levels of remittances. It is not a challenge that is easy resolvable.

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