Foreign companies earmarked for forestry lands

Apr 05, 2017 News

Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman is optimistic that the forestry sector will soon rise again. Trotman acknowledged that the timber industry was “a bit depressed” last year as it underperformed by 15 percent when compared to 2015. He attributed this to the fact that two major companies pulled out last year—Barama Company Limited and Baishanlin International Forest Development Inc.
However, he said that in both instances there have been a number of expressions of interest from international and local companies to fill the gap.
Trotman told Kaieteur News that interest has been expressed by North American and Asian companies that never operated in Guyana before. The Minister said that due diligence studies are in progress, “and that will tell us how we are going to move forward.”
Last year, Barama alone surrendered just about 1.6 millions hectares of forest lands when it left Guyana after 25 years.
Also last year, the Guyana Forestry Commission repossessed concessions held by Baishanlin.
The decision came after the company failed to deliver on agreed actions to introduce investors to the Commission and having been given time to prove that it had an acceptable plan to clear an approximately G$80M debt.

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