By LCN Business Desk
Guyana's national trade exhibition opens at the National Exhibition Centre at Sophia today and runs to Sunday, on a floor of 334 booths. Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Susan Rodrigues put 317 of them as allocated on 2 November, with seventeen still to go. Last year's fair filled about 290.
How big is this year's floor against last year's?
Bigger by roughly forty booths, and it had not quite sold out ten days before opening.
The 334 figure and the seventeen unallocated booths come from the minister, reported by NCN Guyana on 2 November. For the 2025 edition she told a media walkthrough that "this year we have about 290 booths, and all of them are occupied", the Guyana Times reported on 11 November 2025, two days before that fair opened.
The two numbers are booths rather than exhibitors, and the distinction matters for anyone reading a series: a single exhibitor can hold more than one booth. The exhibitor counts run on a separate track, and they do not agree with each other.
When the fair returned in 2023 after what Kaieteur News called a seven-year absence, that paper put it at approximately 250 exhibitors, with admission at G$500 for adults and G$300 for children. A year later the same paper reported approximately 283 exhibitors for 2024, on the figure given by the then Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, who described that as surpassing "last year's total of 200".
Two hundred and approximately 250 are both figures for the 2023 fair, both carried by the same newspaper a year apart, one from its own reporting and one from a minister. Neither has been corrected on the public record this newspaper can find, and the office itself has changed hands since: Walrond gave the 2024 count, Rodrigues the 2025 and 2026 ones.
What is on the floor?
Two auditoriums, three pavilions, two food courts and a main stage.
The pavilions are the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, the Small Business Bureau and an international section, according to the fair's own site, which gives the theme as "Creating Tomorrow's Opportunities Through Today's Investments" and names no countries for the international pavilion. A tourism village sits alongside them, in a month when Guyana's tourism calendar runs 31 events across five of its ten regions and the other five carry none. Rodrigues named thirteen new sponsors this year, with Scotiabank as platinum sponsor.
A business-to-business session runs for suppliers and buyers, alongside a networking session the organisers call Biz Link. That pairing is returning rather than new: the 2025 fair ran a B2B seminar on its opening Friday from 10am to 4pm, on the same report that carried last year's booth count.
Which sectors does the fair exist to grow?
Hospitality, garments, agro-processing and information and communications technology, on the organisers' own account.
Rafeek Khan, president of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, named them at the launch on 24 September, alongside services generally, forestry, fisheries, mining and oil and gas. This newspaper set out at the launch where those sectors sit in Guyanese law: the Local Content Act 2021 reserves forty categories of work for companies that are 51 per cent Guyanese owned, and the schedule is built around the oil and gas supply chain. Hospitality reaches it through accommodation and catering. Garments, agro-processing and information technology largely do not.
The gap sits in the instrument rather than in the fair, and this edition opens into it. The schedule's reach has been the subject of repeated reporting here. ExxonMobil Global Projects awarded a one-year contract in August 2026 to run simultaneous operations software at Whiptail, a US$12.7 billion Stabroek development, and none of the forty reserved categories covers operational software. The same forty categories reserve work by nationality and not by size: the Director of the Local Content Secretariat told a suppliers' forum in Georgetown on 4 November that the Secretariat will talk to the oil companies about opportunities for small and women-owned businesses.
A Small Business Bureau pavilion on the floor is therefore doing work the statute does not. The fair gives small firms a place to stand in front of buyers; the Act gives them no reserved share of the work.
What does a stand at Sophia lead to?
Not established on the published record.
Neither the organisers nor the Ministry has published a figure for orders placed, contracts signed or business concluded at any previous edition, on the public record this newspaper can find. Booths, exhibitors and sponsors are counted each year and the counts are given to the press; the business is not. The nearest thing to a demand figure is a line in that 2024 report that the fair was "set to attract more than 100,000 visitors", which the report attributes to nobody. The same absence runs through the Caribbean's business-cruise trade missions, where Isanaja Consulting of Guadeloupe has run sailings with the OECS since 2019 and Curaçao's private sector association now runs its own. A fair and a sailing are different instruments with the same reporting gap.
For an exhibitor the practical question is what a buyer needs before an order, and that is a documented ladder rather than a conversation. Centaur Holdings of the Pomeroon took the Made in Guyana mark in October 2022 and built a line from cassareep to carambola on it, while the state spent G$462.5 million on agro-processing in the first half of 2026 and runs 101 Guyana Shop corners at home against two abroad. Agro-processing is one of the four sectors named at the launch.
The entities
- GuyExpo is Guyana's national trade exhibition, held at the National Exhibition Centre at Sophia and returning in 2023 after a seven-year absence.
- Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce holds one of the fair's three pavilions and is the lead ministry for the event.
- Susan Rodrigues is Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce and the source of this year's and last year's booth figures.
- Oneidge Walrond held that ministry at the 2024 fair and gave its exhibitor count.
- Small Business Bureau holds the fair's second pavilion.
- Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) is the industry body whose president named the sectors the fair is meant to grow.
- Rafeek Khan is president of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association.
- Local Content Act 2021 reserves forty categories of work for companies 51 per cent Guyanese owned, on a schedule built around oil and gas.
- Local Content Secretariat administers that Act.
- Scotiabank is the fair's platinum sponsor this year.
- National Exhibition Centre at Sophia, Greater Georgetown, is the venue.
Figures
- 334: booths on this year's floor. Source: Minister Susan Rodrigues, via NCN Guyana, 2 November 2026. - 317 allocated, 17 remaining: the position ten days before opening. Source: as above. - About 290: booths at the 2025 fair, which the minister said were all occupied. Source: Guyana Times, 11 November 2025. - Approximately 250: exhibitors when the fair returned in 2023, a count of exhibitors and not of booths. Source: Kaieteur News, 17 November 2023. - 200: the 2023 exhibitor total as given by Minister Oneidge Walrond a year later, against the 250 above. Source: Kaieteur News, 16 November 2024. - Approximately 283: exhibitors in 2024. Source: as above. - Seven years: the absence before the 2023 return. Source: as above. - G$500 and G$300: adult and child admission in 2023. Source: as above. - Thirteen: new sponsors this year, with Scotiabank as platinum. Source: NCN Guyana, 2 November 2026. - Forty: categories of work reserved by the Local Content Act 2021 for companies 51 per cent Guyanese owned. - 12 to 15 November 2026: the dates. Source: guyexpo.gy.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is GuyExpo 2026 and where? It runs from 12 to 15 November 2026 at the National Exhibition Centre at Sophia, Greater Georgetown, under the theme "Creating Tomorrow's Opportunities Through Today's Investments".
How many booths does GuyExpo 2026 have? 334, of which 317 were allocated on 2 November with seventeen still available, according to Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Susan Rodrigues. The 2025 fair had about 290 booths and the minister said all were occupied.
What pavilions are at GuyExpo 2026? Three: the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, the Small Business Bureau, and an international pavilion. The fair's own site names no countries for the international section. A tourism village, two food courts and a main stage sit alongside two auditoriums of booths.
Does the Local Content Act cover the sectors GuyExpo promotes? Partly. The Act reserves forty categories for companies 51 per cent Guyanese owned, on a schedule built around oil and gas. Of the four non-oil sectors the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association named at the launch, hospitality reaches the schedule through accommodation and catering, while garments, agro-processing and information technology largely do not.
What business does GuyExpo generate? Neither the organisers nor the Ministry has published a figure for orders placed or contracts signed at any previous edition, on the public record this newspaper can find.