Every year, it pleases me to see an ever-widening group of friends visit our country for Guyexpo. This year is no exception, and I want to welcome everyone – investor and tourist alike – who is with us here tonight. We are delighted to have you here.

I would like to especially welcome Vice-Prime Minister Mia Mottley from Barbados and the many distinguished representatives from that country who are with us tonight.

You join us this afternoon at a time of major change for our country.

After years of hard work and perseverance in the face of considerable difficulties, we are starting to see the outline of a Guyana that can thrive in the modern world.

The quality of the Guyana we create in the years ahead will be a result of our collective efforts to simultaneously build on these positive foundations and deal with constantly evolving challenges. In line with the theme of this year’s Guyexpo – partnering for progress – our society must work together to successfully navigate our way through this time of great change.

I therefore want to outline two things for you this afternoon – one, why I believe that the people of Guyana have what it takes to create a country of which we can all be even more proud, and two, my vision for how we can create the successful economy which is a critical component of a peaceful, socially just and prosperous Guyana.

In both cases, I have a sense of optimism that is grounded in the most core belief I hold as President of this country – a belief that the qualities of the Guyanese people are fundamentally positive ones, and that if we match these qualities with opportunities to succeed, then there is nothing that can hold our nation back.

Over the past fourteen months, we have seen proof of this in very visible ways. I want to draw your attention to three significant examples.

First, last year’s general election. The conduct of our people and politicians of all parties in ensuring a dignified and peaceful democratic process gave testament to the maturity of our democracy, and to our people’s solidarity and respect for collective will.

Second, our hosting of the Cricket World Cup. Not only did we defy our critics by being ready on time, we also showed the world that competence and informal hospitality can be coupled in a way that is evident in very few places.

Third and most recently, the successful settlement of the border dispute with our neighbours in Suriname. Seven years ago we were provoked by an act of unwarranted aggression. We could have responded in a similar manner, but instead we placed our faith in the rule of law and measured diplomacy as the means to secure our territorial integrity.

Each of these examples demonstrates a calm assertion of the values that justify my optimism in the people of this country, values from which we can draw confidence to prepare for greater success in the future, but this greater success is not pre-determined.

While the values may be timeless, the world in which we apply them is anything, but nowhere is this more applicable than in the field of our economic development, and it is to this I would now like to turn.

The roots of my economic vision remain as they have always been - a deep commitment to social justice coupled with an unshakeable belief in the power of a vibrant free-market economy to create wealth. Once more I want to make it clear – there are no contradictions whatsoever in this position. Respect for our fellow citizens, compassion, tolerance and a desire to leave no Guyanese behind as our nation develops – these values are not in competition with support for a dynamic, competitive and assertive private sector that can compete and win in the global market-place.

For many years, I have articulated that my economic vision to achieve this is built on three over-arching principles – prudent management of the economy, sustained investment in public services, and support for a modern and vigorous private sector.

Prudent management of the economy is the corner-stone - without it, nothing else is possible. My Government takes pride in the longest period of macro-economic stability Guyana has ever seen – our currency remains stable, our fiscal and balance-of-payments deficits are under control, and the portion of Government revenue spent on servicing our foreign debt has declined from 94% to about 5%. Our overall monetary policy remains sound. The spike in inflation we saw earlier this year does not represent trend inflation caused by a weakening in monetary or fiscal policy, but resulted from imported inflation due to exogenous factors such as major hikes in the price of fuel and grain, and from difficulties surrounding the introduction of VAT. I can assure you that we will continue to address all the endogenous factors affecting price increases, and I am confident that our strong fiscal and monetary policies will allow us to return to low inflation soon.

Furthermore, we are confident that the situation has stabilized and will lead to lower inflation by the end of this year.

This sound economic management has enabled the Government to sustain unprecedented levels of investment in public services. The physical infrastructure of our country has been transformed and the access of our citizens to Education, Health, Housing and other social services has been vastly expanded. Yet my Government is conscious of the need to ensure that increases in investment and access to services are matched by continuous improvement in the quality of those services. At our recent Cabinet Retreat, my Government identified delivering these improvements as a key priority.

The transformation of Guyana’s physical infrastructure continues – by the time we meet for Guyexpo next year, I hope that a contract to commence work on the hydro-electricity plant at Amelia Falls will have been signed, leading to cheaper electricity and greater energy security for our country. The bridge linking Guyana with Brazil will be complete, and the bridge across the Berbice River will be nearing completion. The construction of a state-of-the-art sugar factory at Skeldon has started, and will deliver a step-change in the competitiveness of our sugar exports on global markets. These changes in the physical landscape of our country are vivid indicators of the pace of change being experienced by our entire society, and the gathering momentum behind increased economic potential which is there to be realized.

That brings me to the third principle which underpins my economic vision – support for a vigorous and modern private sector.

The opportunities for investors with the capacity to turn visionary ideas into business results are vast – whether in traditional sectors such as mining, sugar, rice and timber, non-traditional sectors such as aquaculture, agro-processing, fresh fruits and value-added forestry products, or service exports such as construction, tourism, design and ICT-enabled services. In the years ahead, our location at the gateway between the Caribbean and Brazil, and our access to the CARICOM market-place will open up vast new markets for those doing business in Guyana.

I want all investors to know that if you obey the law and practice good corporate governance, my Government will not stand in your way. Your investments will be protected by law and not subject to the whim of politicians, and you will be supported by economic policies that are unambiguously pro-business, pro-profit and pro-growth.

These policies to create a globally competitive Guyana are documented in our National Competitiveness Strategy, which is grounded in a recognition that as a small economy, our success is dependent on an open engagement with the outside world.

This need to engage with regional and global markets is why we have built one of the most open economies in the world, and why we were at the forefront of the regional economic integration effort. Moreover, it is why I have identified enhancing Guyana’s competitiveness as my number one strategic economic priority.

As a Government, there is much we have to do – for example, better implementation of laws to promote investment and support competition, more capacity in export and investment promotion, targeted support for new growth poles within the economy, and an aggressive focus on efficiency that seeks to remove red tape and improve the ease of doing business. But more than this - we also need to see a mind-set shift across our entire public service, where a customer-service mentality takes hold and facilitates both transparency and effectiveness in the support of business.

The partnership we speak of at Guyexpo today will similarly need to evolve. Just two years ago, we were talking of the need for government and business to work together to identify policies for private sector development – those policies are now synthesized within our National Competitiveness Strategy. Yet, what was good enough just two years ago now requires an even greater level of partnership, one which is not just about bringing the government and business together, but about forming new and innovative coalitions that cross the public-private divide to deliver on shared priorities.

I want to draw attention to three important examples.

First, we need an accessible and competitive financial sector. Despite historic levels of liquidity, we have businesses all over the country which cannot access the finance they need to expand and create value. Undoubtedly, the Government has a role to play in enabling greater competition between financial institutions but the private sector in Guyana must work alongside Government, and become more vocal in demanding competitive offerings from Guyana’s banks and other financial institutions.

Secondly, we need to promote the discipline of the market-place as we support the creation and expansion of competitive companies. This brings a particular focus on the need for high standards of corporate governance. While in the past, a casual approach to business might have sufficed, that is no longer the case. For our economy to grow, we need all our companies to maximize productivity, efficiency and profitability – and to achieve this, we need the Government and private sector to work together to provide the right incentives for legitimate businesses to continually improve their adherence to good corporate governance norms.

Thirdly, we need to work together to address the gap between the image of Guyana that is perceived by many, and the reality that those of us who live here experience. An inaccurate image of the business climate within our country, - whether in international competitiveness indices, media coverage or financial ratings - has real bottom-line impact on our private sector’s ability to expand. This manifests itself through high country risk factors and therefore higher prices for financial products which businesses need to grow. During my visit to New York earlier this week, I spoke with some of the Chief Executives and founders of some of the largest companies in the United States. They expressed their frustrations with the quality of many international business commentaries on countries such as ours, pointing out many so-called business climate assessments are carried out by staff who have never run a business or major government department in their lives. This unfair situation can only be addressed by the Government and business jointly correcting inaccuracies and working together to improve our image overseas.

These are examples of how we can partner for progress – through broad partnerships of progressive forces that unite Government, business and wider civil society to harness the power of economic change to mould our nation for generations to come. Conservative approaches where we retreat to the comfort zone of that which is familiar – especially if that means protectionism, insularity or monopolism – represent a failure of nerve which will not serve the people of Guyana.

Before I conclude, I want to return once more to last week’s historic ruling on the Guyana-Suriname maritime border dispute.

I spoke earlier of how the resolution of the dispute demonstrated the enduring values of the Guyanese people, and justified my core belief in the people of this country. I hope that future years will see these values matched by even greater opportunity as a result of the enormous wealth we all hope and expect to find off our coastline.

I would like to congratulate and thank the organizers of GUYEXPO 2007, I wish all of the exhibitors a successful exhibition, and in particular I would like once more to welcome our overseas friends and wish you an enjoyable stay in our country.

I am delighted to declare open GUYEXPO 2007.