Growth outlook remains favourable for Guyana- World Bank

Guyana’s growth outlook remains favourable over the next few years, largely on account of the country’s nascent oil and gas sector, but World Bank economist William Maloney advised the country to continue bolstering the institutions tasked with managing oil wealth.

According to figures detailed in a new report from the World Bank, Guyana expects a 25.2 per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate this year.

In 2024, it is projected that the rate will be a further 21.2 per cent while in 2025, GDP growth should be pegged at 28.2 per cent.

Real GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of all goods and services produced by an economy (in this case, Guyana’s economy) in a given year. In simpler terms, the real GDP measures a country’s total economic output, adjusted for price changes.

Overall, the Latin America and Caribbean region expects a 1.4 per cent growth rate this year compared to the 2.1 per cent growth rate expected globally.

Maloney, while presenting the new report titled “The Promise of Integration: Opportunities in a Changing Global Economy”, said the Caribbean region in particularly was hard-hit by many global challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic, the fallout from the Ukraine/ Russia crisis and spiking prices and interest rates.

Still, he said there have been some positives with countries in the region managing their debt well and are now showing signs of recovery.

Focusing specifically on Guyana, he acknowledged that the high growth rates are linked to the exploitation of a new natural resource- oil.

“The big challenge will be to develop an institutional structure to ensure that those resources go where they have to go,” Maloney said however.

However, he noted that the World Bank is among the partners engaging Guyanese authorities on strengthening local institutions to improve the management of the country’s resources.