Guyana’s biggest annual trade fair and exposition will not be held this year, according to Business Minister Dominic Gaskin, who believes the activity was not benefitting businesses.
What was once one of the country’s biggest calendar events, GuyExpo was last held in 2016 following an executive decision by the coalition government.
Minister Gaskin told reporters Monday evening that GuyExpo is not necessary given that there are other trade fairs like Uncapped, RACE and the upcoming GuyTIE initiative.
“We have another event in mind for this year and we wanted to focus on it,” he said, referring to GuyTIE, an event which seeks to foster business to business collaborations.
“Depending on how it comes out, we want to do some sort of analysis and do it perhaps bigger and better next year. When we get it right, then we can start talking about GuyExpo again,” Minister Gaskin stated.
He added that “I am not sure we actually need to have GuyExpo every year… It’s not that we want to write it off but we want to focus on events that helps to stimulate our export industries and help to prepare businesses to become export ready.”
According to the Business Minister, GuyExpo was not fostering collaborations between businesses. He described the event as a “vending” and “partying” type of initiative that achieved little, especially in making companies ‘export ready’.
“It wasn’t a business to business type of event,” he noted.
GuyTIE –Guyana Trade and Investment Exhibition – will be the major event this year, commencing September 19 at the Marriott Hotel, Kingston.
GuyTIE will target buyers and investors from CARICOM, United States, Canada, European Union and Latin America.
Objectives:
To promote packaged local investment opportunities for FDI and local investment.
To prepare and promote export-ready firms to export markets.
To highlight Guyana as a destination for business.
Exhibitors: Large multinational firms to SMEs in both the manufacturing and services sector in Guyana.
Markets: The event will target buyers and investors from select target markets (CARICOM, U.S., Canada, EU and Latin America) as well as priority sectors (based on exhibitors) to attend.
