GUYANA-Micro and small enterprises to get additional financial support.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, has welcomed a five million US dollar loan agreement signed with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), saying it will provide additional support for micro and small enterprises in Guyana.

The funding is being provided through the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED), with Singh indicating that the government considers IPED a vital and special institution, noting that it was established during a complex political and economic environment with virtually no private sector.

He said IPED has grown from strength to strength over the last 40 years, disbursing more than 147,000 microcredit loans valued at more than GUY$64 billion (One Guyana dollar = 0.004 cents), supporting thousands of Guyana’s smallest entrepreneurs.

“In a small environment like Guyana, it is really a remarkable achievement,” Singh said, noting IPED currently has “about 5,000 clients on the books and about 40 percent of IPED’s borrowers are women and about five percent are under 25 five years of age.

He said IPED has a “strong track record of supporting women and young entrepreneurs and working in rural communities, having served more than 700 different villages across the length and breadth of Guyana”.

Singh thanked the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and complimented the IDB team for all of its successful partnership work with the government over the last few years, noting some of the various projects and other initiatives that the IDB has assisted with in terms of Guyana’s private sector, including the soon-to-be-opened Four Points by Sheraton Hotel.

He said that since he assumed office in 2020, the IDB-Invest has partnered with Guyana’s private sector on financing totaling over US$250 million.

IDB Country Representative Lorena Solórzano-Salazar said that the project will impact Guyana, and given that the country is the fastest-growing economy in the region, the role of the financial sector is critical to support local entrepreneurs, including micro and small enterprises, in line with the government’s strategy to diversify the economy and improve access to financing.

Therefore, by supporting IPED, Ms. Solórzano-Salazar posited that the IDB-Invest would be supporting micro and small enterprises.

IPED chairman, Komal Samaroo, expressed appreciation to the government of Guyana, IDB-Invest, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for making the initiative possible. He said that it is significant that the agreement signing coincides with IPED’s 40th anniversary, to be celebrated this year, and that the organization has made a substantial contribution to the development of the micro and small business sectors in Guyana.

The loan agreement includes a US$2.5 million loan through IDB-Invest and another US$2.5 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s Trust Fund Achieving Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (TADAC Fund), administered by IDB.