SME finance and regional integration dominate as Street Forrest opens Guyana's second capital markets conference

Dr Marlene Street Forrest has told the second annual Guyana conference on investment and capital markets that deeper ties between the Jamaica Stock Exchange and Guyanese stakeholders are already opening avenues for wider financial literacy, broader equity access and a market setting in which more people can take part.

Speaking at the gathering, she thanked the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Guyana Stock Exchange and lead sponsors JN and NCB Capital Markets, along with other backers, for helping the young forum take root as a place to chart how regional bourses should evolve.

She said teams from the Jamaica Stock Exchange had spent the past year meeting businesses in Guyana, holding follow-up Zoom sessions with private-sector groups and swapping practical ideas on how to widen understanding of securities, channel savings into productive ventures and keep collaboration on a steady footing rather than a single event.

This year's theme, Financing for Success, frames growth as the meeting point of drive, wealth creation and ordinary households. Dr Street Forrest argued that ambition alone is not enough without dependable routes to funding, guidance and basic market plumbing, and that a well-run exchange can move money from investors toward firms that can use it productively.

She pointed to small and medium enterprises as the core of Caribbean output, noting that many start from a genuine wish to solve a local problem yet stall for lack of expansion finance. A credible listing venue, she said, can give such firms room to raise capital, enlarge payrolls and widen the economic ripple that a formal equity culture tends to spread more evenly than informal channels alone.

Drawing on Jamaica, she said the Jamaica Stock Exchange had supported expansion through transparency, accountability and investor education, and she noted that the bourse has been ranked among the top-performing exchanges in the world. She said that outcome rested on deliberate policy choices rather than chance, and that Guyana could harvest similar upside if authorities and operators nurture an open, resilient marketplace rather than letting opportunity sit with a narrow circle.

She also flagged energy and manufacturing as sectors where adequately funded local firms could plug into wider value chains, and she urged closer regional market links so issuers are not confined to shallow home pools when larger global portfolios are within reach. Emerging jurisdictions, she cautioned, still have to meet demanding rules, clean reporting and global norms if they hope to pull in serious foreign portfolios.

Delegates were reminded that the programme continues into the following day and that corridor talk after the formal sessions should feed concrete policy and deal-making choices for Guyana and neighbouring states.