Training opportunities, capacity building for Region Three businesses

With Region Three (Essequibo-Islands- West Demerara) set for massive transformation over the next few years, the newly-elected President of the Region Three Chamber of Commerce, Premendra Parsan says that the chamber will place much emphasis on building the capacity of the region’s businesses.

In an exclusive interview with the News Room on Friday last, Parsan acknowledged that businesses with high standards will be coming to Guyana to do business and as such, local businesses must be competitive.

As such, he reasoned that the chamber would not only have to engage in advocacy on behalf of the local businesses but also facilitate capacity building for these establishments.

“It’s not about providing a blank training programme that is so far off, but (we must) be able to reach them at their level- not saying that is a low level- to build a stronger business community in Region Three,” Parsan explained.

During his tenure as president, Parsan hopes to facilitate a suite of training sessions, workshops and seminars for the businesses in Region Three. Additionally, he said that the chamber would be focusing on increasing its membership.

All of these interventions, Parsan explained, will be geared towards enhancing the economic development of the entire business community in the region. But, he contended that economic development must be accompanied by socio-economic considerations.

“One of the things we were discussing is understanding the challenges of the region and finding organisations that we can be able to align with,” he said.

Explaining this further, he said that whatever social issues exist- whether domestic violence, mental health challenges, or unemployment- the local business community must be able to align their work with efforts to help combat these.

This means that the local business community would become “service-oriented”, wherein it is able to find solutions to problems that exist.