National Competitiveness Council calls for more value-added exports

The National Competitiveness Council believes that Guyana can become more successful if it develops a more robust value-added export industry. While various sectors have comparative advantages due to the availability of land, water, competitive wages, and an advantageous position as a potential exporter to Caricom, Guyana has not been successful at building up competitive advantages.
The council said that what is needed is a long-term strategic analysis and planning by government, along with effective and vigorous private sector entrepreneurship through the formulation of policies aimed at enhancing national competitiveness and diversification of the economy.

Progress
According to the council, important progress has been made locally in recent years in managing the process of adjustment to the new world economic environment.
This has been undertaken through the exercise of fiscal discipline, improvements in the environment for private investment, reform of the tax system, creation of a property market, investing in basic education and infrastructure, and boosting productivity in traditional sectors of the economy.
However, the council is of the opinion that urgent and pressing challenges remain to be tackled, including the economic imperative of improving national competitiveness and diversifying the economy.
“Whilst economic diversification has long been and remains a major aspiration of Guyana’s policymakers, as a country, we have historically been highly dependent on the exports of only a handful of natural resource commodities. This continues today with sugar, gold, rice, shrimp, timber and bauxite accounting for 86 per cent of exports and 69 per cent of GDP,” the council stated.
It added that the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) has also been creating many competitive threats for Guyana.
The council feels that along with the challenges of globalisation also come opportunities to tap into international markets and take advantage of increasing capital and technology flows which can lead to greater income and employment opportunities.
It said that Caricom’s flagship CSME can create a single economic space which provide access to a market of over 14 million consumers, encourage international standards of production and allow for a more efficient utilisation of regional resources.
Over time, Guyana can enjoy increased access to capital, skills, and other contributions and benefits from across the region as well as the strengthening of the legal framework to facilitate the pooling of Caricom resources, which can result in a more effective community during international negotiations.
Integration
The council said that such an environment will provide the platform to enable Guyana and the entire Caribbean community to integrate effectively and competitively with the rest of the global economy by creating the conditions which enable goods and services to be competitive in both intra-regional and extra-regional markets.
“It is necessary to chart a new way forward to generate a new momentum for growth and prosperity that is consistent with these more challenging competitive realities, with the ultimate objective of delivering a better quality of life for all Guyanese.”
The National Competiveness Strategy came into being in 2006 after a multi-stakeholder forum with various private sector representatives pouring several ideas out for the enhancement of Guyana’s economic outlook.
The challenge, however, over the years has been the implementation of the strategy by the National Competitiveness Council. Executives of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) described the strategy as one of the most articulate and well-written documents. The chamber believes that the strategy aptly encapsulated the deficiencies of the economy and the measures that are to be taken to reverse this trend.
However, the business community called for an acceleration of the work of the council in relation to the implementation of the ideas.