By Lance HindsI was at a regional Business Colloquium last year where private sector and governmental agencies were discussing the challenges of regional and extra-regional export. During one of the plenary sessions, a buyer from England was explaining thatLance Hindsinternational retail giants like Costco have moved the various Caribbean Sauce products out of the diaspora market and are now integrating it into their regular product offerings.The challenge with this, however, is that Costco now requires larger volumes to supply these new markets and is complaining that the Caribbean producers are struggling to meet this new demand along with the new packaging requirement. This apparently was getting to the stage where the megastore was contemplating opening a production plant somewhere in the Caribbean or in Poland and produce Caribbean pepper sauce under the Costco brand.This of course, did not go down well with the participants, and it inevitably started the usual complaints about the cost of production, transportation, lack of financing, “unreasonable” demands by the overseas buyers, lack of government support etc.During my contribution to the discourse I suggested that Costco establishing a production facility in the Caribbean might not be a bad thing and that there might be creative ways to earn revenue within that dispensation. Despite the sudden chilliness in the room, I then went on explain that if we accept that it is going to be difficult to meet the demands in term of supply of pepper sauce, we should explore the possibilities of the likes of Costco engaging in the mass production of pepper sauce,Cheap NFL Jerseys, but using our recipes under a licensing agreement.What that means is that the owners of those recipes would receive royalties every time a bottle of pepper sauce is sold. The revenue received under this economic model could be used by the owner(s) to become research and development facilities perfecting the recipes for further licensing.This idea gained a lot of currency amongst my colleagues in the room who,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, like me, are part of the emerging economic sectors. The agro processing community, along with some of the government agencies stared at me like if I had a complete lack of understanding of the sector, hence the reason for my most na?ve and uninformed suggestion. That of course is their opinion.The bottom line, however, is that generally the state of affairs has not changed substantially since that meeting, and if a new level of thinking is not applied to these processes,Wholesale Nike NFL Jerseys, sustainability, profitability and even existence is going to be a more serious challenge. It is time,Cheap Jerseys China, therefore, to begin the implementation of a knowledge economy for the long term economic benefit of our citizens.A knowledge economy can be defined as one in which the generation and exploitation of knowledge play the dominant part in the creation of wealth. The World Bank proposes four pillars on which knowledge and innovation-related policies should be built on. These are as follows:• An educated and skilled labour force able to continuously upgrade and adapt their skills to create and use knowledge efficiently.• A modern and adequate information structure to facilitate effective communication, dissemination and processing of information and knowledge.• An effective innovation system composed of firms, research centres, universities, consultants, and other organizations that keep up with new knowledge and technology and adapt it to local needs.• A country’s institutional regime and the set of economic incentives it creates that allows for the efficient allocation of resources, stimulates entrepreneurship, and induces the creation, dissemination and efficient use of knowledge.The World Bank argues that for countries to become successful knowledge economies, “they have to rethink and act simultaneously on their education base,Cheap China Jerseys Authentic, their innovation systems, and their ICT infrastructure, while also building a high quality economic and institutional regime”.Guyana faces significant challenges with the four pillars as described above. This has resulted in the ranking of 80 on the World Bank’s Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) Index. This index measures the extent to which the knowledge economy provides development and a desired quality of life on a sustainable basis by accessing, developing and using knowledge and information.In my opinion this has a lot to do with a long time narrow perspective on how our economy should grow. This must change. We need to develop the culture of using knowledge management as a comprehensi