Investment

Barama to get back into lumber business with $1b plan: The Malaysianowned Barama Company Limited last Sunday reported that it is well on the road to financial recovery and is preparing to get back into the lumber business with a $1 billion (US$5 million) plan. It was also announced that the company had rehired 80 persons it had laid off back in 2018 and managing director of the company Mohindra Chand said that the investments proposed over the period would see 140 more persons added. “In the last eight months, we would have increased our output by 200 per cent, introduced a new superior product and started a reinvestment that would see hundreds of millions spent,” Chand said at the company’s 30th anniversary event, held at its East Bank Demerara, Land of Canaan headquarters and factory. He disclosed that over $500 million will be spent on major rehabilitation of the company’s equipment and machinery and $500 million more on infrastructure, human resource, training, certification and other areas “bringing this investment to about $1 billion”. “[Barama] 3.0 is taxiing on the runway to take off,” he declared. While not going into detail, Chand said that the company also plans get back into the lumber business. The managing director praised the Guyana government for increasing the Common External Tariff (CET) on imported plywood produced outside CARICOM as one of the main pillars for the company’s financial recovery but made a plea to the government to remove the taxes on the glue it uses to make the plywood here. Chand said that this was because the special glue cannot be sourced from any Caribbean country and is bought from a Norwegian company that manufactures it to international standards.