The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has issued a call on local commercial banks to come clean on providing information about the possible hindrances that may be restricting the local private sector from accessing better financing from the banks.
In a statement, the Chamber of Commerce said it wants to know of the issues, whether those issues are legislative, economic, social, or environmental.
According to the Chamber, a number of its members from the private sector have publicly voiced their concerns about the issue, and the issue which has also been raised with the Finance Minister.
“Access to finance is one of the most critical issues facing the business community and the Chamber believes that the banks play a major role in mitigating the existing challenge. The banks’ failure to respond to the concerns of the private sector leads to the assumption that the issue of access to finance may be a question of internal diffidence at their level as opposed to a national legislation or policy concern,” the GCCI said.
The GCCI said the private sector needs to have access to multiple instruments of borrowing such as invoice factoring, accounts receivable financing, contract borrowing and movable property lending to increase its competitiveness in the oil and gas sector.
The GCCI said the local private sector risks becoming unable to compete with regional and international counterparts if this issue persists and it still faces challenges in accessing financing.
Just recently, the GCCI complained about not enough access to foreign currency and complained to the Central Bank about the issue.
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