Barama’s closure hardly affected forestry sector – GFC

Head of the Forestry Commission, James Singh says the local industry was not greatly affected when Malaysian Logging firm Barama pulled out of the Guyanese market in 2016.

Barama had invested in excess of US$43B in its operations in Guyana since its establishment in 1991. The logging firm was considered one of the country’s largest employers with approximately 800 Guyanese workers.

But in 2016, Barama did not renew its contract with the Government. Singh told a news conference on Monday, however, that the closure was not a major blow to the industry as stakeholders had expected.

“We all thought that Barama not renewing its concession would have had a significant impact but that turned out to not be so. When you look at the production we have gotten (last) year, it was 377,000 cubic metres and the previous year, we had about 353,000 cubic metres,” Singh stated.

The retrenched workers, he said, did not experience difficulties in finding new jobs.

“Most were absorbed in other forestry operations and some in the mining sector,” the Commissioner stated.

Singh said the entity had also projected a $250M lost of revenue, however, this did not occur.

According to the Commissioner, there was an increase in production from community forestry associations and state forest commissions which are small concessions.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Forestry Commission disclosed that two new logging firms are expected to join the market by 2020. The two firms currently have state forest exploratory permits and it is expected that it will be converted to large logging concessions.