WTC Georgetown’s Executive Director, Wesley Kirton (right) signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MO) with WTC’s Bengaluru (Bangalore) Vineet Verma. (Facebook Photo)
Bangalore, India – Guyana has participated in the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA) Global Business Forumin Bengaluru, India which ended Thursday with its Georgetown Center actively promoting the new oil producing country’s focus on advancing the interest of small and medium sized enterprises, according to the association’s Executive Director – Business Development, Robin van Puyenbroeck.
Executive Director for Business Development of the World Trade Centre Association Robin van Puyenbroeck
In an exclusive interview with SFLCN from India, van Puyenbroeck said there is growing interest in Guyana arising out of its significant oil and gas discoveries which “opens opportunities for small and medium size enterprises. Many of the WTC Association’s business constituents and partners are SME’s from around the world so their natural partners in Guyana are SME’s and the center in Guyana can look at trade services like trade information and education that lead to bilateral trade and investment outside of the extractive industries.”
Noting that the WTCA mandate is to “promote international trade and development “van Puyenbroeck said that WTC Georgetown’s participation in the global forum provided or Guyana to be branded and become more visible and connect among a network of businesses around the world. “It is not just for you to find others. It’s for others to find you and learn what you have to offer and the WTCA network provides such a platform,” he said.
With Guyana tripling its GDP over the past four years, the WTCA executive director said the question is how the population of about a million people benefit from this.“ This would be through entrepreneurship, better jobs, and more opportunities in agriculture, in retail, in infrastructure and with more people in Guyana starting their own businesses and doing business with companies in other countries.
“It is not just about big international companies coming in but about how the people of Guyana scale or start their own businesses. It is also about regional and international opportunities. The growth opportunities are there for SME’s in Guyana to use the country’s geopolitical position and strong links to develop more business with the Caribbean, Africa and the Americas,” he said.
Van Puyenbroeck said the WTC Georgetown is very active and despite its building not being completed its team is busy marketing Guyana in Bangalore. “We have full confidence in the team in Guyana and that later this year when the building opens that in itself will create a lot of buzz.”
WTC Georgetown’s Executive Director, Wesley Kirton (right) signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MO) with WTC’s Bengaluru (Bangalore) Vineet Verma. (Facebook Photo)
WTC Georgetown signed a number of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU)’s during the Forum, according to information and photographs posted to the Facebook Page of its executive director, Wesley Kirton.
In his FB post Monday Kirton said “Earlier today World Trade Center Georgetown, Guyana signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU’s) with four (4) World Trade Centers in India – Bengaluru; Mumbai, Jaipur; and Bhubaneswar which set out the framework for collaboration and joint action to facilitate, inter alia, trade policy information sharing, strategies for mutual market access, training and capacity building, exchange of trade and investment missions, market intelligence and research, and the promotion of best practices.”
The 54th WTCA General Assembly and Global Forum was attended by 240 delegates from 36 countries and according to the official program discussed issues including food security and the case for Effective Public Private Partnerships in Transforming Agriculture; the Driving Forces of Innovation in Real Estate; and AI and Tech Support For Business Start Ups.
