Dear Editor,
My prompt for this letter is that picture of a meeting of high-level leaders of the Japanese and Guyanese governments – discussing expansion of investment, commercial and trade relationships. See yesterday’s newspapers.
It looks like this meeting only discussed the niceties of investment and commercial ties. Minister Ashni Singh said, “We’d like to see more Japanese companies operating here”. President Ali is also in Qatar talking Investments. He doesn’t say what kind of factory Qatar will open in Guyana to help with economic development. Qatar is an oil-gas country, but Exxon already has that tied down.
Neither President Ali nor Minister Singh offered any specifics on the kinds of Investment and how it will advance Guyana’s economic development model.
Maybe the Investment projects are still at the conception phase. But certainly, all Guyanese would welcome Japanese companies operating in Guyana. Why? Because they are very good at manufacturing great stuff – cars, electronics. And, they are very good at marketing.
Guyana may not be suitable for cars and electronics. All parts and inputs would have to be imported, and it becomes an assembly shop.. Not too many workers are available in Guyana either; then you have to import the labour also. And, Guyana still does not have a labour/immigration policy.
Maybe Japan is very good at agriculture; very good at growing a certain type of rice. Give them 5,000 acres of good rice-growing land. Let them export all the rice to Japan. Maybe Japan is very good at canning tomatoes or Guyanese fish (sardine-type) for export. Evaluate for value-added to Guyana’s economy.
Guyana has great hard and soft woods for furniture manufacturing. Maybe Guyana should invite IKEA to open a furniture manufacturing plant. IKEA potentially could flood the world with Guyana’s prized wooden furniture.
Some models of development:
1) When China was allowed to join WTO (world trading system) America’s economic planners said China would do low-end manufacturing (clothes, shoes) and America high-end manufacturing (computer hard-drives, chips). We know how that worked out. China produced more engineers than the rest of the world combined – and now China makes all the high-end stuff. Guyana is too small – no labour for even low-end manufacturing – unless Guyana starts importing a few million people to settle there.
2) Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia – these countries have a very different model. They import millions of people to work. And, they tell the imported workers, “Save your money and go back to your country”. The standard of living & quality of life for their citizens have risen by leaps and bounds matching that of First World’s peoples. Average income of their citizens is higher than that of North Americans. Their model has proven to be very successful.
3) Who remembers Sir Arthur Lewis’s model of development: Theory of Labour surplus? Guyana today does not have a laboru surplus anymore. They have all migrated to North America.
President Ali needs to develop and define a new model to propel the Guyanese people to a more comfortable standard of living. Evaluate those meetings with Japanese and Qatari Investors – and let President Ali explain to the Guyanese people how that kind of investment fits-in with whatever developmental model Mr. Ali has in mind.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
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