Guyanese businesses make ‘solid’ connections...

O’Toole, also indicated that their experience was positive.

“It gives you a very broad of grasp of how big the oil and gas sector is in the world,” O’Toole said.

“The GCCI did a phenomenal job. I just want to say thank you to Mr. Hutson, the GCCI team, they did a wonderful job. It was a great success for us. We have had ongoing discussions with OPITO, a worldwide leader in health and safety and oil and gas education. We are now in the first step of rolling out a fundamentals in oil and gas course with OPITO and rolling out training on the technical side,” he added.

Guyana fielded a joint delegation of private sector and government entities. Included were almost 40 private organisations of which 16 were from the GCCI.

According to Hutson, this was a first-time attendance for over 90 per cent of the GCCI members.

The government’s delegation was led by Chief Investment Officer, and Head of the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), Dr. Peter Ramsaroop.

A primary focus of attending the event is education, connection, and networking.

Energy professionals, engineers, executives, operators, scientists, and managers from around the globe and across all offshore energy sectors also attended the event.

Industry leaders dis - cussed licensing, business opportunities, and recent advancements in technology.

“This is something we look forward to for the exposure and giving back to our membership. We continue to foster relationships via partnerships with international firms,” Hutson noted.

During the event, the GCCI was able to network with business chambers from Venezuela and Brazil and initiated discussions on developing a continuous relationship.

The GCCI also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the South Louisiana Economic Council in the US.

During the OTC, local telecommunications giant, GTT, also announced its collaboration with WAN -

SAT to provide high-speed broadband internet to remote regions of Guyana after the successful launch of the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite into a geostationary orbit.

Speaking at Friday’s press conference, GTT Chief Operations Officer, Orson Ferguson, noted that the OTC was a great opportunity for the company to gain exposure and reassure foreign company of the services it can offer.

“It was extremely important for us to have been able to attend this conference. It is easy for [foreign] companies not knowing much about Guyana to assume we don't have worldclass services here. As companies think about coming to Guyana, we want companies to know that they can depend on us to deliver reliable connectivity, and it was very important for us to be there to demonstrate that,” Ferguson noted. of the media.

However, Dr Jagdeo criticised the World Press Freedom Index for ranking Guyana 26 spots lower and suggested that the report was bias and influenced by politically-aligned media practitioners. He also mentioned that the report did not include condemnation of the attacks on journalist Davina Bagot, which the administration had unreservedly denied.

Dr Jagdeo urged the GPA not to use the PPP/C as part of its internal campaign and instead focus on the issues at hand.