On East Grove Main Road, a busy stretch in George­town, Guyana, a dou­bles shed stands at the road­side. Over­look­ing the small tent is a Movi­eTowne com­plex rem­i­nis­cent of Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain. Massy Stores and Star­bucks are al­so part of the space—all sights fa­mil­iar to any Trin­bag­on­ian.

De­spite it be­ing ear­ly af­ter­noon, there’s a steady flow of cus­tomers pulling over to grab a dou­bles. The busi­ness, called Tri­ni Gyal Dou­bles, is owned by Crys­tal Azeez, who now lives in Guyana with her Guyanese hus­band, Amar. In un­der a year, Azeez has ex­pand­ed from a sin­gle dou­bles stand to ten across the coun­try, mak­ing her one of many Trinida­di­ans eye­ing Guyana’s eco­nom­ic boom for busi­ness.

It all start­ed with a burg­er ven­ture called Dou­ble A Burg­ers, but Guyanese cus­tomers—and cu­ri­ous tourists — kept mis­tak­ing it for a dou­bles stand. “Peo­ple would stop on the street and ask if we were sell­ing dou­bles,” Azeez said. That mix-up changed every­thing.

“We nev­er had a dou­bles back­ground. All I knew to do was eat dou­bles. But we went home, we tried to make it, and we shared it with the neigh­bour­hood—and peo­ple liked it,” she said. They start­ed sell­ing on week­ends, then on Fri­days. “From then to now, we have nev­er been out of cus­tomers.”

To­day, Tri­ni Gyal Dou­bles op­er­ates six days a week across Guyana. In a rapid­ly grow­ing mar­ket boost­ed by oil and gas de­vel­op­ment, Azeez’s busi­ness is rid­ing the wave. “A lot of Trinida­di­ans are com­ing over to work in the en­er­gy sec­tor, so the econ­o­my is grow­ing. And many Guyanese who lived in T&T and learned about dou­bles have come back to set up busi­ness­es of their own,” she said.

The eco­nom­ics of dou­bles be­tween both coun­tries is vast­ly dif­fer­ent, how­ev­er. Azeez sells her prod­uct for $GY200 per dou­bles. That's rough­ly $TT6.50 for one dou­bles. How­ev­er, she ex­plained one tank of gas costs them $GY4,500 (or $TT146.52) and chadon beni could climb as high as $GY1,500 per pound (or $TT49). She says she can use up to 12 tanks of gas per night. Plus, she has had to tai­lor her dou­bles to the Guyanese mar­ket, who, she says, like thick­er chan­na and thick­er bara.

Rid­ing the con­struc­tion wave

Just a short dri­ve away, Ja­son Samuel and Cruz Abra­ham, both Trinida­di­ans, are build­ing their own suc­cess sto­ry. They found­ed JSA En­gi­neer­ing and Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in Guyana last Oc­to­ber—a move that’s proven time­ly, as ma­jor con­struc­tion projects are pop­ping up in near­ly every town.

From ho­tels to new roads, Samuel has found a strong foothold in Guyana’s build­ing boom. His com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a three-storey struc­ture that will house a bowl­ing al­ley, han­dling every­thing from the steel frame to civ­il works, elec­tri­cals and plumb­ing. They’ve al­so de­signed a sev­en-storey of­fice build­ing and a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment.

“I would say in the Caribbean right now, Guyana is the place to be. It’s the place to in­vest,” Samuel said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia. “But when you come in here, you need to bring val­ue as well.”

He be­lieves col­lab­o­ra­tion is key. “The lo­cals here—once they have a good team from sis­ter coun­tries that can help cer­ti­fy, train and part­ner—we could be per­fect in five years.”

Samuel has al­ready set his sights on long-term growth.

Busi­ness ten­sion be­neath the sur­face

Still, the wel­come hasn’t been with­out fric­tion.

Pres­i­dent of the George­town Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try (GC­CI), Kathy Smith—the Cham­ber’s first fe­male pres­i­dent in its 136-year his­to­ry — told Guardian Me­dia that while many Trinida­di­an-owned busi­ness­es have joined the Cham­ber, some lo­cal busi­ness­peo­ple have voiced con­cerns.

One ex­am­ple she gave in­volved joint ven­tures. In some cas­es, a Trinida­di­an part­ner who sup­plies the ma­te­ri­als re­port­ed­ly in­sists the Guyanese com­pa­ny buy on­ly from them—and then dras­ti­cal­ly in­creas­es prices.

“It ends up be­ing an un­fair prac­tice,” Smith said. “Yes, there’s a lot of mon­ey and op­por­tu­ni­ty in Guyana, but that com­pa­ny still has to sur­vive—pay­ing ad­min costs, staff salaries, rent, sub­con­trac­tors, and more.”

She al­so said she’s heard com­plaints that some Trinida­di­an man­agers on­ly vis­it once or twice a year, leav­ing Guyanese coun­try man­agers to run op­er­a­tions with lit­tle sup­port or recog­ni­tion. “I’m told there was some sense of, ‘I know, you don’t know’,” she added.

Abra­ham, from JSA, agreed that any busi­ness en­ter­ing Guyana must do so with re­spect.

“This is not home,” he said. “When we come in­to this mar­ket, we have to con­sid­er this is some­body else’s home. We need to re­spect it. We need to share it with them—our knowl­edge, our ex­pe­ri­ence—and we need to be hon­est.”

Still open for busi­ness

De­spite the com­plaints, Smith made clear that Trinida­di­ans are wel­come.

“With our grow­ing oil and gas in­dus­try, Guyana doesn’t yet have all the ca­pac­i­ty need­ed. Yes, we have lo­cal con­tent leg­is­la­tion to en­sure Guyanese ben­e­fit where ca­pa­ble, but we al­so wel­come sup­port from coun­tries like Trinidad that have ex­pe­ri­ence in the sec­tor,” she said.

Al­so in George­town last week was Greater San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness Cham­ber pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh, who held meet­ings with the GC­CI to ex­plore trade mis­sions, we­bi­na­rs and B2B part­ner­ships as part of a south-to-south trade push.

“T&T’s econ­o­my is on­ly so large,” Singh said. “We’re part of Cari­com. Guyana is just one hour away and be­ing one of our clos­est neigh­bours, we can ben­e­fit from the huge po­ten­tial Guyana’s econ­o­my of­fers.”

He added that the coun­try could al­so serve as an op­tion for young Trinida­di­ans seek­ing work and op­por­tu­ni­ty—an al­ter­na­tive to em­i­grat­ing to the US or UK.

“The cul­ture is sim­i­lar to ours. The ge­og­ra­phy is fa­mil­iar. But Guyana has more land, which means more space for growth. That should mat­ter, es­pe­cial­ly for SMEs.”