Jamaica outstripping Guyana in pursuit ...

attributed to the failure of some local products to meet phyto sanitary and other quality criteria for ‘making’ the shelves in countries with large markets, the view has long been held that the relatively low success which Guyana has realized in terms of market access for agro produce and other locally manufactured goods, has been due to the indifference of the government to aggressively promote local goods. While the Government of Guyana helped to meet the costs associated with the participation of a limited number of product producers to the Barbados Agro Fest event earlier this year, local agro processors and craft producers, on the whole, continue to criticize what they say is the paucity of support provided by government for overseas product promotion despite what is now widely believed to be the ability of the country to “do more,” given the country’s oil-driven improving ability to do so.

The JTB has cited various products including rum, canned callaloo, ackee, body lotions, water, black castor oil, baked goods, seasoning, ketchup, spices, pepper sauces, crackers and biscuits, (the vast majority of which are either produced or can be produced in Guyana) as being among those products that can be “readily exported to several countries around the world duty-free under the provisions of about eleven (11) of the available trade agreements to which Jamaica has signed.” The trade agreements which largely assist local importers and exporters with securing improved access for goods and services in contracting states also often reduce some of the trade barriers existing in those markets.