Regent Street businessmen say trading down 30% - 60% – new Chamber president – tags reduced liquidity, drop in walk-in customers

Feedback from a recent visit to more than 70 business houses in Georgetown by officials of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) points to a significant decline in urban commercial activity, newly elected President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Deodat Indar has told the Stabroek Business.

Blaming the sluggishness of the business climate largely on reduced liquidity and a decline in “walk-in customers” – partly the result of the situation that had arisen out of the parking meter fiasco, Indar said the feedback received from the business houses engaged by the Chamber officials points to a decline in trading that ranges from 30% to 60%,

The disclosure by the new Chamber president follows months of wider private sector insistence that there has been a significant slowdown in economic activity, though he conceded that there was a need to support the anecdotal evidence with reliable statistical information.

And against the backdrop of assertions in some quarters that local business support organizations have lacked assertiveness in advocating the causes of their membership, Indar said that the chamber’s new leadership team will be seeking to make the body “a louder, firmer, more intelligent voice” for the business community.

In an interview on Wednesday, Indar told this newspaper that the new chamber executive will be placing “the protection of business” high on its agenda. “We have a job to do as advocates for the business community and we intend to do that job,” Indar said.

The changing of the guard at the helm of the GCCI coincides with what is widely considered to be an icy standoff between the public and private sectors, characterized by stark differences over the state of the economy and the issuance of public statements on both sides that match the prevailing mood of uneasiness. But in last Wednesday’s exchange with this newspaper Indar sought to emphasize the importance of government and the private sector working together, declaring that the new Chamber executive “will be working to help create an avenue, a process, that kicks in to deal with government, private sector grievances.”

The UK-trained business executive who serves as Company Secretary at Sterling Products Ltd, said that last Tuesday’s meeting between representatives of several private sector bodies including the chamber, the Private Sector Commission and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) entities, and a team from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to discuss a range of issues including taxes was an example of dialogue in an environment which can be described as “a step in the right direction.” He said that part of the focus of the GCCI would be on fashioning an enhanced environment within which discourse between government and the private sector on the broadest possible range of issues can proceed towards constructive outcomes.