Economic boom
GCAA Director General, retired Colonel, Egbert Fields.
GCAA Director General, retired Colonel, Egbert Fields.

–aviation sector contributes $20.7B to economy, supports 12,000 jobs
–estimated to expand exponentially with emergence of oil and gas sector

THE aviation sector contributes significantly to the local economy, a US $50,000 study conducted here by Oxford Economics Limited has found.
According to the May 2015 study titled “The impact of aviation on Guyana’s economy”, the sector contributed some $20.7B in annual economic activities.
This amounts to some 3.2 per cent of the country’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015.

That year, Guyana’s GDP stood at US$3.179B. Additionally, the study has found that the aviation sector supports approximately 12,000 jobs; nearly one in every 20 jobs here.
Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), retired Colonel Egbert Fields, told reporters during a press conference held at his Kingston office that Guyana’s economy is “on an exploding path”.
He explained that with the expansion of the runway at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), the eminent oil and gas industry, and the expansion of the domestic aviation industry, it is clear that the future is bright.
Fields said the study was done to set benchmarks for the future and to understand the position of aviation in the economic realm and the role it plays.
The GCAA director-general said the study will serve as a baseline “as we move ahead in more challenging times with an exploding economy”.

GCAA Air Transportation Director, Saheed Sulaman .

“We will be able to rate the impact aviation has on this economy in a better way moving ahead,” he stated.

Fields disclosed that the London-headquartered contractor only utilised data from the CJIA and the Eugene F. Correia International Airports, as no records for interior aerodromes and airstrips were not available.
“We did get a few baseline data but we could not get the computer data out of the interior because records were not properly kept, but we hope that by the next survey we would have complete data from the interior locations. We have already set things in motion to accumulate such data and we would be able to use those in the future,” he said.
Notwithstanding the absence of data from hinterland airstrips and aerodromes, the GCAA director-general said the contractor had sufficient data to properly conduct the study.
The study also did not include data about the operations at small airstrips and international carriers except Fly Jamaica, capital investment spending, sources for input data and survey data provided by the two main airports and six air operators.
Meanwhile, via PowerPoint presentation, GCAA Air Transportation Director, Saheed Sulaman, explained that tourism has a major role to play in the industry.
The study concluded that practically all foreign tourists to Guyana arrive by air.

CATALYTIC IMPACT
“In economic impact terminology, the spending by foreign tourists represents a catalytic impact of aviation. This represents a large influx of spending into the Guyanese economy. That spending ripples through the economy, benefitting a variety of sectors,” Oxford Economics said in its report.
Nevertheless, Sulaman was quick to point out that other local industries also rely heavily on aviation including the mining and extractive industries and retail or trade sectors. Tourism, though, is completely dependent on aviation and the government has received almost $2B in travel tax.
Some 8,550 jobs can be attributed to tourism with G $13.8 billion in impacts from roughly G $23 billion in spending. Approximately 70 per cent of the jobs are in the hotel and restaurant industry; trade, transportation and communication sector; and finance, real estate and commerce.
Approximately 900 workers are employed directly at airports and are operators, while almost 2,600 more are employed in indirect (supply chain) and induced channels.
“In a fully self-sufficient economy (i.e., no imports), the sum of the direct and indirect impacts of $1 in final purchases would be exactly $1. Induced effects would make the total impacts larger.

“In practice, the sum of direct and indirect impacts is always smaller because of leakages, or impact lost to imports from abroad. However, our estimates, especially for tourism, show unusually high leakages by international standards,” the report added.
The Oxford Economics Limited report emphasised the role transportation plays in operational and tourism impacts as well as what it has described as “an indispensable role connecting Guyana, both internally between regions and to the global economy”.
The connectivity enabled by aviation, the report added, has the potential to reshape the Guyanese economy, enabling new industries and increasing productivity in existing ones.
It is believed that a country’s air connectivity boosts economic growth and opens new markets, fosters trade, encourages foreign and domestic investment, stimulates tourism, and facilitates the exchange of ideas and technology.
“This encourages innovation and raises productivity,” the May 2015 study said.

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