AFC outlines plan to assist and support start-up and small businesses

Leader and Presidential Candidate of the Alliance For Change, Nigel Hughes, has outlined his parties plans to assist start up businesses, support small business and expand large enterprises into regional and international markets.

Speaking at his party’s business reception on Monday evening, Mr. Hughes said while the country is ripe for business, many businesses are faced with the problem of financing.

He believes this could be overcome if systems are put in place by Government to ease finance access.

“And so we have to create access to finance at rates that are more competitive than anywhere else in the Caribbean. So we first have to create two things, a junior stock exchange, up to maybe $5 to $10million that you can get from the stock market with less stringent requirement that you will get at the full stock exchange—but the real challenge with stock exchange in Guyana is that people don’t use it or are not aware of it as a source of potential funding,” Mr. Hughes stated.

The AFC Leader said he believes that local companies have the potential to dominate both the local and regional market, but the opportunities appear limited.

To this end, he is proposing that government should not only provide the financing, but also the opportunities for businesses to grow and become competitive.

“Why have we still not build the kind of competitive, muscular, economic entities that can begin to dominate the Caribbean market and the global one. We can create the financing and economic infrastructure we want them to grow, we want to see our bigger companies grow,” Mr. Hughes advocated.

But, Mr. Hughes contends that for businesses to really thrive here, all political parties have to get on board, to safeguard the country’s territory and its economy.

He said although politicians might have different views, he believes that all parties must sign a pact that will ensure at the bottom line, that the country is kept safe to allow businesses to grow and flourish.

“The five key areas that we need to identify long terms to have all the political parties signed off on in broad terms, we can argue about its nitty gritty but we need to do that for a stable economy and stable country and to protect the future and those five areas are the border, foreign policy, the economy, elimination of poverty and the most important factor that would transform the country and that’s education,” Mr. Hughes stated.

Hughes also stressed the importance of education, promising to establish a national skills academy, which he noted, will be a voluntary form of national service that caters for those without a formal secondary education, and are looking for training opportunities.