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Guyana

Quick Facts

Population:	751,223
Land area:	214,970 square Km
Capital:	Georgetown
Language(s):	English
Local Currency:	Guyanese dollar (GYD)
Exchange:	US$1.00 = GYD190.50
UNDP Human Development Rank:	103 of 177
Life Expectancy:	63.1
Adult Literacy rate:	96.5
Official Government website:	http://www.op.gov.gy/

Government

President - Bharrat JAGDEO
Prime Minister - Samuel HINDS
First Vice President - Second Vice President - Reepu Daman PERSAUD
Min. Office of the President (Foreign Minister) - Rudolph INSANALLY
Min. Office of the President (Public Service) - George FUNG-ON
Min. of Agriculture - Robert PERSAUD
Min. of Amerindian Affairs - Carolyn RODRIGUES
Min. of Culture - Frank ANTHONY
Min. of Education - Henry JEFFREY, Dr.
Min. of Finance - Ashni SINGH
Min. of Fisheries, Crops, & Livestock - Satyadeow SAWH
Min. of Foreign Affairs - Rudolph INSANALLY
Min. of Foreign Trade - Henry JEFFREY
Min. of Health - Leslie RAMSAMMY, Dr.
Min. of Home Affairs - Clement ROHEE
Min. of Housing & Water - Harry NAWBATT
Min. of Human Services, Social Security & Labour - Priya MANICKCHAND
Min. of Labour - Manzoor NADIR
Min. of Legal Affairs - Doodnauth SINGH
Min. of Local Government - Kellawan LALL
Min. of Marine Resources - Satyadeow SAWAH
Min. of Parliamentary Affairs - Reepu Daman PERSAUD
Min. of Public Service Management - Jennifer WESTFORD, Dr.
Min. of Public Works - Harry NAWBATT
Min. of Tourism, Industry, & Commerce - Manzoor NADIR
Min. of Transport, Communication, & Hydraulics - Robeson BENN
Min. of Youth & Sports - Gail TEXEIRA
Min. Within Local Government - Clinton COLLYMORE
Head of Presidential Secretariat - Roger LUNCHEON
Attorney General - Doodnauth SINGH
Governor, Bank of Guyana - Dolly S. SINGH
Ambassador to the US - Bayney KARRAN
Permanent Representative to the UN, New York - Rudolph INSANALLY

Public Holidays: New Year's Day (01 January); Republic Day (23 February), Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day (01 May), Phagwah (as decreed), Eid-ul-Azah (as decreed), Youman Nabi (as decreed), CARICOM Day (first Monday in July), Freedom Day (01 August), Diwali (as decreed), Christmas Day (25 December), Boxing Day (26 December)

Economic Development

Economic Survey of the Caribbean 2007-2008

The survey provides an overview of the economic performance of countries of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) for the year 2007 and their outlook for 2008. The last chapter presents country briefs with the main macroeconomic developments in 2007 and the outlook for 2008.

During 2007, the economy of Guyana kept on a path of recovery and expansion, recording growth of 5.4%. This was a record figure for the last decade, especially after the stagnation period suffered between 2000 and 2005, when GDP growth averaged less than 0.2% annually. New investments and projects in several productive sectors (sugar processing, hydroelectric generation, gold and bauxite mining, oil extraction, etc.) aim to boost and sustain the current trend of economic growth for the next few years.

A major financial event for Guyana in 2007 was the drastic reduction in the level of the external debt, thanks to a wide forgiveness programme of multilateral debt. In this scenario, the central government’s surplus in the primary balance widened to 10.0% of GDP while the overall fiscal deficit narrowed to 7.4% of GDP.49 Efforts to keep the Guyana dollar’s nominal exchange rate stable were quite
successful, with an accumulated annual nominal depreciation against the United States dollar of just 1.2%.

However, there are concerns on how stable Guyana’s economy is, regarding the impact of external negative factors, like the sustained rise in food and oil prices or the sub-prime crisis currently affecting the United States. Particularly worrisome are the large current account deficit, which amounted to US$232 million (21.6% of GDP) fuelled by the increase of expenses on imports, and the steep increase of the inflation rate to 14.1%, which is a major concern for the government because of its direct influence on economic and social welfare and development.

Economic Performance

Guyana: Why Has Growth Stopped? An Empirical Study on the Stagnation of Economic Growth
IMF Working Paper, April 2007.
After a period of exceptionally strong economic performance, Guyana’s growth has stagnated since 1998. The paper tries to identify the factors that can explain this dramatic deterioration in economic performance. The paper first attempts to explain the decline of growth with a growth accounting exercise which shows that there was a significant swing in total factor productivity, and than uses a panel regression framework to analyze the growth impact of changes in various factors. Finally, through a series of cross-country exercises, the paper shows that the primary reasons for the divergence between the economic performance of Guyana and other Caribbean, HIPC, and PRGF-eligible countries in 1998-2004 are a substantial decline in share of net foreign and private domestic investment in GDP, a decline in the labor force, and a less favorable political and institutional environment.

Bank of Guyana Recent publications
Main Source: Guyana's Budget Address for 2007

After the harsh effects of flooding in 2005 (which led to a 3% GDP contraction), and extreme capital outlays in 2006 (for Cricket World Cup), special attention must be given to the already poverty stricken country of Guyana ( more sources on Guyana poverty: Country programme document for Guyana 2006-2010, Guyana’s Asessment report, 2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy Progress Report) . Though the economy appears to be increasing by a marginal 1.3% in 2006, most of this was attributable by the transient sector of construction. The once nucleus of the country’s foreign reserve, agriculture and mining industries have become near negligible with each passing year. Agricultural growth stood at a disappointing 0.4% (due to floods in February 2006), whilst mining output contracted by 15.5% following the closure of Omai gold mine in 2005.

Fiscal and Monetary

Tax and tariff administration allowed the government to attain higher revenues by 9.6% in 2006. However, the overall fiscal operations deficit still widened by a further 35%, mainly caused by capital outlays on the 2007 cricket world cup and election spending. Substantial relief is expected from the Inter-American Development Bank (the country’s primary creditor). In attempt to reduce the risk of inflation, the Bank of Guyana raised the benchmark 11 basis points to trigger an increase in the interest rates. Conversely, it had little impact as the principal lending rate remained unchanged and the average lending rate actually dropped by 66 basis points. (more on interest rates and inflation refer to:Interest Rates)

CHALLENGES

Update on the Poverty Reduction Strategy

Key issues identified in the Guyana’s 2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy Progress Report were; (i) the neglecting response of mitigating measures to decrease the vulnerability to natural disasters; (ii) the stagnation of presenting a business friendly environment; (iii) more emphasis must be placed on traditional sectors( agriculture, mining, forestry) as they account for 34% of GDP; (iv) Improving competitiveness internationally is essential, since the open economy’s exports account for over 75% of GDP where assistance of export promotion from the Guyana Office of Investment (Golnvest) could be facilitating in this respect; Improving the monitoring and evaluation with updated poverty statistics (vi) finally, the report identifies problems of demographic changing due to high migration of skilled labourers.

Adopting a Formalised Plan

For years, the Guyana government has tried to conquer the troublesome task of alleviating poverty. In its efforts, economic policies and reforms on Guyana’s socio-economic development have been to no avail. Migration is the most observable problem that hinders upon the quality of human capital in Guyana. An IMF working paper, Emigration and Brain Drain: Evidence from the Caribbean, shows Caribbean countries ranking within the top 20 in the world in terms of skilled emigration rates. Moreover, Guyana emigration rates (in reference to educated labour force) stood at the highest amongst all countries, at 89%. (more sources on Caribbean migration: Skilled Labour Migration from Developing Countries, Guyana Migration ,Migration in the Americas)

Another point of interest, in need of reviewing, is having insight on Guyana’s investment climate. An economy cannot operate a business friendly investment climate, when there is political instability or tension within the country. Investment in the modernization of traditional sectors poses great significance in a country that is 75% covered by uninhabited land covered by resources such as, forestry, sugar, bauxite and other traditional entities. (source: Stronger by association: lessons from Guyana’s forest-based associations)

Social Development

Guyana's National Drug Strategy Master Plan 2005-2009

The National Drug Strategy Master Plan of Guyana 2005-2009, reflects the recognition by all concerned that the level of drug activity in our country requires a comprehensive integrated and coordinated approach in order to make a major impact on controlling its penetration into the fabric of our society.

From the early 1990s, the Caribbean region has increasingly come under threat from the narco-traffickers with the expansion and diversification of their activities into the islands and territories of the Caribbean and South America. The sophistication and spread of their operations have caught most of the small developing countries of this region off guard and unprepared to respond to these incursions into these countries and societies.
Source: Bureau of Statistics

Poverty Reduction Strategy Progress Report 2005

This second annual progress report covers the periods from January through December 2004, and January 2005 to December 2009. It reflects Guyana's achievements and shortcomings in the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS), and presents an action plan for 2005 and beyond. Despite the continued vulnerability of the economy to exogenous shocks, the inadequacy of infrastructure and the weakness of existing institutional capacity, there has been considerable progress in actions and reforms initiated by the Government within the framework of poverty reduction. After three years of implementation, the PRS has become established as the overall framework for sector strategies and has been increasingly used to focus partners’ contributions around the Government's priorities. However, external financing continues to lag behind donor pledges made at the time of the elaboration of the poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) in 2001.

The Issues and Challenges

The key issues identified in the 2004 Poverty Reduction Strategy Progress Report include (i) the difficult external environment, (ii) low absorptive capacity, (iii) challenging sociopolitical conditions, and (iv) weak monitoring and evaluation of the poverty reduction strategy programme. Although some success was achieved, many of these problems persist.
Source: Poverty Reduction Strategy 2005

Guyana’s National Development Strategy

The National Development Strategy (NDS) sets out priorities for our nation's economic and social development for the next decade. The draft document - which is made up six volumes - contains careful technical analysis of problems and future prospects in all sectors of the economy and in areas of social concern. It presents us with an opportunity to work together to prepare Guyana for the challenges of the next century.

The draft NDS - which was launched on Monday 6th January, 1997 by the late President His Excellency Dr Cheddi Jagan - is a result of over 300 hours of meetings by 23 "technical working groups" consisting of over 200 Guyanese. These efforts were co-ordinated by the Ministry of Finance, but the contributors came from a wide cross-section of organisations including the private sector, government agencies, non-government agencies, and the University of Guyana. The Carter Center assisted the Ministry of Finance with the overall co-ordination of the exercise.
This article summarises the key recommendations made by the NDS in the areas of macroeconomics (Volume 2), the social sectors (Volume 3), the productive sectors (Volume 4) and the infrastructure sectors (Volume 5).
Source: National Development Strategy Plan 2005

2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Western Hemisphere)

All men and women desire and deserve to live in dignity and liberty. As President Bush said: "The advance of freedom is the great story of our time." Promoting human rights and democracy is a worldwide phenomenon and there is a growing global discussion of democracy and the universal values protected by democratic governance.

By defending and advancing human rights and democratic principles, we keep faith with our country’s most cherished values and lay the foundation for lasting peace. Fulfilling the promise of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and building vibrant democracies worldwide will take generations, but it is work of the utmost urgency that cannot be delayed.
Source:US Dept. of State

Education

Guyana Strategic Plan 2003 – 2007

Education has been signalled as a national priority. The National Development Strategy (NDS) document and the Guyana Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (GPRSP) contain clear statements to this effect. There is considerable agreement in the society that the road to national development can be achieved only through learning and hard work. There is a profound level of consciousness in the leadership of the country that it is necessary to improve the human capital of Guyana by giving all citizens the opportunity to grow to their fullest potential, paving the way to greater productivity and economic development.
During the past decade the Government has made substantial efforts to improve the education system. The proportion of the national budget allocated to education was increased by over ten percent; international loans from different agencies and bilateral cooperation from some countries have supported initiatives in the education sector; and some significant changes have been introduced. In 1995, the Ministry released the Education Policy Document, outlining several options to improve the schools and the learning taking place in the country.
Source: Ministry of Education Strategic Plan

Environment

Solid Waste Management

Health

Health Statistics from the Americas. 2006 edition. PAHO
The publication serves to display the extensive availability of detailed mortality data in countries of the Americas. It also highlights the importance of addressing deficiencies in data coverage and quality in order to improve the reliability and usefulness of registered mortality information. Despite improvements over the years, much more needs to be done to strengthen the civil registration and vital statistics systems in countries where they are deficient. The Pan American Health Organization gratefully acknowledges the continued cooperation and support of its Member States in providing this information for dissemination. I am confident that this information can contribute toward health situation analyses used by policymakers to make decisions that improve the health of the populations of the Americas.

Agriculture

Small and Medium Forest Enterprise in Guyana 2003: a discussion paper

This report assesses the opportunities and constraints facing the Small and Medium Forest Enterprises (SMFEs) in Guyana. Precise definition of what constitutes an SMFE in the forest sector is difficult because of the many different types of enterprise and the lack of data surrounding them.

Recent estimates suggest that there are approximately 750 formal SMFEs working in the wood-based sector including forest extraction companies (less than 24,282 Ha), sawmills (less than 16,000 m³/yr) charcoal licences, firewood producers, furniture manufacturers, timber dealers and sawpit dealers. There are many more enterprises and community groups involved in the production of other small wood products and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs).
Source:Guyana Forestry Division

Legislation

GUYANA JUSTICE SECTOR REFORM STRATEGY 2006-2010: “Safety, security and access to justice for all”

The goal of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy describes the Government’s ultimate objective, to which the Strategy will make a substantial contribution. In effect, it provides the justification for the Strategy. Reflecting Government’s development objectives as set out in the PRSP, the Strategy goal is expressed as - Safety, security and access to justice for all'

The purpose of the Strategy expresses its immediate objective and intended impact. It reflects the specific means by which the Strategy will achieve its goal of safety, security and access to justice for all. The purpose of the Strategy is expressed as – To deliver a justice system that is more trusted, accessible and accountable and works together to deliver all necessary services efficiently and effectively
Source:Government of Guyana

Statistics

Selected statistics indicators for GUYANA
UN Statistics Division for GUYANA
Caribbean Social Statistics Database
Caribbean Trade Statistical Database

More Information

Guyana third in World Bank World Development Index 2008

Guyana placed behind Dominica and Grenada in the Caribbean on the World Bank’s World Development Indicator for 2008. source: Caribbean Net News

Guyana: World Bank Approves $9.6 Million Grant to Strengthen Economic Governance and Reduce Poverty

Washington, April 27, 2006 ?The World Bank’s Board of Directors today approved a $9.6 million International Development Association (IDA) grant to support the government of Guyana in its efforts to strengthen economic governance and reduce poverty. In particular, the new program aims to improve transparency, accountability and efficiency with which resources are used across the public sector, including by strengthening the role of Parliament in fiduciary oversight.
Source: World Bank

Presidents Jagdeo and Castro sign cooperation agreements

Georgetown, GINA, February 04, 2006

Guyana and Cuba have heightened their relations with Presidents Bharrat Jagdeo and Fidel Castro affixing their signatures on enhanced cooperation agreements.

President Jagdeo left Guyana for Cuba on February 1, accompanied by Minister of Public Service Dr. Jennifer Westford, Director of Budget Dr. Ashni Singh, Director of Regional Health Services Dr. Bheri Ramsarran and Director of Protocol at the Office of the President Col. Francis Abrahams.
Source:Office of the President of Guyana

Key Documents

Up one level

Impact of changes in the European Union import regimes for sugar, banana and rice on selected CARICOM countries: LC/CAR/L.168
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE AGRI-FOOD DISTRIBUTION SERVICES INDUSTRY IN CARICOM
Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2007-2008
2005 Latin America and the Caribbean Selected Economic and Social Data
Guyana: Why Has Growth Stopped? An Empirical Study on the Stagnation of Economic Growth
Toward a Caribbean Vision 2020: A Regional Perspective on Development Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies for
Guyana's National Development Strategy
Budget speech 2006: transforming Guyana through modernisation
Guyana budget 2006 at a glance
Guyana Development Policy Review: The Challenges of Governance and Growth
CTO. Latest Tourism Statistics for the Caribbean 2008
Economic Survey of the Caribbean 2007-2008
ICT 4D Guyana national strategy. Final draft
Assessment of the Telecommunication Services Sector in CARICOM: Convergence Issues at the Regional and International Level
Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision
CARIBBEAN CONNECT: A HIGH LEVEL SYMPOSIUM ON THE CARICOM SINGLE MARKET 28 - 30 June, 2006, Sherbourne Conference Centre, Two Mile Hill, St. Michael, BarbadosND ECONOMY.
Regional Assistance Plan for the Caribbean
Trade Integration in the Americas
Background to Negotiations on CARICOM Canada Trading Arrangements
Hemispheric Trade and Tariff Database

Bibliography