MARLENE Street-Forrest, managing director of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), said the entity is now getting ready to take advantage of the opportunities that are on offer in Guyana and is urging other Jamaican companies to follow suit.

Street-Forrest made the declaration to the Jamaica Observer shortly after the conclusion of the JSE regional investments and capital markets conference in Guyana last week. It was the first time the conference was being held outside of Jamaica.”There is a lot of work moving forward and we must now draft a plan as to how we are going to execute on this,” Street-Forrest told the Business Observer after meeting, post-conference, with bodies in Guyana such as the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association, Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Private Sector Commission of Guyana Limited.

She said those meetings were fruitful, and not only opened opportunities for the JSE, but also its member-dealers and local companies, which were also in attendance at the investments and capital markets conference. Member-dealers who were on the trip to Guyana included Sagicor, VM Wealth, JMMB, Barita, GK Capital, and NCB Capital Markets. Listed companies such as Regency Petroleum and Fosrich were also there to either find new business or to shore up existing plans to enter Guyana.

“There are opportunities. Guyana’s finance minister told us that he wants us to see and understand the opportunities that are there, not only in oil but in various areas,” Street-Forrest continued.

The conference last week was the JSE’s first big push into Guyana. The aim is to understand the nascent capital market in that country and find ways to collaborate with the Guyanese to develop it further. Street-Forrest said the JSE was always having dialogue with the Guyana Association of Securities Companies and Intermediaries (GASCI) — the recognised stock exchange in Guyana — “long before the opportunity of oil came about” to find ways to integrate that stock exchange with Jamaica and others in the region and to also leverage the experience of the JSE in helping Guyana to further develop its own capital market.

“We feel that it is necessary to have integrated markets and we were looking at that,” she acknowledged. Having integrated markets, she argues, means more trading across the exchanges in the Caribbean, more listings, more transactions, and more work for the Jamaica Central Securities Depository.

“We are not doing it for charity, but we are doing it for love. We are doing it to make money,” she said without quantifying a target for the JSE, which clearly sees Guyana as its next growth frontier. “We think that the opportunities are there for the stock exchange, in terms of volume, value, and number of transactions. We think it is there from the trustee and registrar services and we believe that for the e-campus for training and for CBX to expand,” she outlined. CBX is the Caribbean Business Exchange, a business-oriented cable TV channel started by the JSE last year.

But, for her, the opportunities do not stop with the JSE or the various lines of businesses in which it is involved.

“We see opportunities for the brokers and opportunities for our listed companies and opportunities for the country,” she continued.

“Our member-dealers and listed companies have seen leads, but they will not tell you because those are private talks now, but they have said to us that they have seen opportunities and have made a lot of connections.”

“When we went also, we realised that there we so many more opportunities in agriculture and every single sector in Guyana, in terms of demand. There is a demand for labour, there is a demand for products, there is a demand for collaboration and partnerships, there is a demand for various players in the various industry, and there is a demand for how we provide and assist in strengthening their own financial services.”

“What we found also is that there is, at the base of it, quite a bit that is going to be necessary in terms of investor education and market development in terms of the stock exchange, which we knew before, and so that is concretised, and also working with small and medium-sized companies who want to access other than debt capital, who want to access equity capital. So the opportunities are there. It’s really an area that I think that Jamaicans on a whole, not only just the financial sector, but Jamaicans can find opportunities.”

For the JSE itself, she said care is being taken not to be prescriptive.

“We are going in. We are going to see what they have, what they want, and then what we can do to assist. We have cutting-edge technology here and we are not saying that is the approach that they need to take, but whatever is the approach that they need to take, whatever the approach that they want to take, we can offer our experience, they can leverage our experience.”

Street-Forrest said that means looking at successes and failures of the JSE and taking measures to build an integrated regional capital market involving Guyana. That, she said, includes getting companies in Guyana to list on the local stock markets, which is why she said she met with the various private sector bodies in that country after the investments and capital markets conference.

“They were all receptive and all understanding the value of partnerships and friendship, all feeling that Jamaica is the place for them to work with. So we felt welcomed and we now have a laundry list of things that we need to do now.”

Guyana has been experiencing rapid economic growth in recent years, linked to the development of its oil industry. Over the past decade Guyana has found huge amounts of oil and gas under its coastal waters. It now boasts reserves of about 11 billion barrels. That puts it in the top 20 in terms of its potential, on par with countries such as Norway, Brazil, and Algeria.

The oil bonanza has transformed the Guyanese economy. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it grew by 62 per cent last year and is expected to add another 37 per cent this year. That is the fastest growth rate anywhere in the world.