It has not been simply a matter of these small businesses generating significant levels of employment and creating additional income streams for their owners, it was also, in many instances, a matter of ordinary people proving to themselves that they possessed skills and capabilities that they could use as vehicles to lift themselves.

From our perspective (and this is not the first time we are saying this) the Small Business Bureau is saddled with a level of responsibility for the growth of the small business sector that far exceeds the resources that have been placed at its disposal.

Some of the institutional mechanisms that can play a role in the growth of the small business sector – particularly in the farm products and agro processing sub-sectors (the Guyana Marketing Corporation is the example that comes readily to mind) – are themselves hamstrung by resource-related limitations.

With the limited state support afforded through the vehicle of the Small Business Bureau (SBB) and their own resources as well as a conviction they harbour that if they try hard enough, they are optimistic that an avenue will open up for them.

Additionally, it is not our view that the mainstream banking sector has evinced a sufficiently significant level of interest in the growth and development of small businesses even though some of these have the potential to help transform the country’s agro-processing/manufacturing sectors in the years ahead and create money-earning opportunities.

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OECS represented at 22nd Meeting of Foreign Ministers of CELAC

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