DEEMED an international line, Brazilian company, AMATUR, plans to commence a bus service linking Lethem with Georgetown by November this year.

President of the Brazil-Guyana Chamber of Commerce, Remídio Monai, confirmed the plans of the company with Brazilian media entit, Radio Folha. He said, too, that trade and investment opportunities in Guyana appear bright.

Monai highlighted Guyana’s economic growth and its future and how the service could benefit the state of Roraima. “Great entrepreneurs want to make a port in Georgetown and others want to go into agribusiness. Guyana, in a few years, will be exploring more oil than Venezuela and so people will have large purchasing power to invest in Roraima, consume as well. The new fact is that Guyana will be exploring oil and there are companies from various states that are aware of this exploration,” he said.

The line is part of the bilateral International Passenger and Freight Road transport agreement and, according to Monai, the anticipated establishment of the service came to fruition in the last set of meetings of the chamber. “Our relationship with Guyana has been around since 1968. We reactivated the Chamber of Commerce and created some guidelines to seek support. Among 14 items that we defined in our agenda, there was the Passenger and Cargo Transport Agreement. This agreement was signed in 2003 and now we set our main goal to get it off the ground. Everything went a long way and 80% of what we were trying to solve was solved, ”he explained.

AMATUR or Amatur Amazônia Turismo Ltda provides passenger transportation services to the municipalities of the state of Roraima and also to Manaus using its fleet of 50 vehicles, including its popular double-decker buses. The company said its fleet includes vehicles which can operate on paved and unpaved roads.

Previously, the company operated along the route in partnership with a local company under the INTRASEV brand. AMATUR says that in addition to its plans to launch the service between Lethem and the Coastland, it plans to establish facilities at both locations.
A Lethem-based travel agency, Fly Brazil Travel Agency, has noted that AMATUR is aware of the condition of the roadway and, as such, engineers from the neighbouring country will be undertaking the maintenance between the Kurupukari Crossing on the Essequibo River and Linden, in order for the buses to operate with a reasonable traffic flow along the route.
Guyana has been the target of several international companies in various sectors including the financial, transportation, airline and oil and gas as the country prepares to capitalize on more than a dozen oil discoveries since May 2015.

Thus far, American oil giant ExxonMobil has made 13 oil discoveries offshore Guyana in the Stabroek Block. Recently, UK-based Tullow oil also announced that it struck oil in commercial quantities in the Orinduik Block and according to a report in online portal, OilNow, Tullow estimates that here are approximately 100 million barrels of oil in the Jethro-1 well where it struck oil. Norway-based energy research and business intelligence company, Rystad Energy, has said Guyana’s total estimated income from the 13 discoveries made so far by ExxonMobil is now projected at $117.5 billion US dollars.