– President Jagdeo
THE Guyana economy is doing well despite the global situation, President Bharrat Jagdeo reiterated Monday.

He was replying to questions about the performance for this year at a Monday press conference in the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.

His answer was: “So far, I think, given what is happening around us, I feel comfortable that the economy is doing fairly well.

“I wouldn’t say along the same growth plan that we had planned before the crisis but it is doing better than many other countries in our part of the world and also our revenue is doing fairly well.”

Last July, the Head of State had also said he was pleased with the way the economy was performing, so far, on the revenue side, although it deteriorated from the previous year’s comparable period, as was expected because of the global financial crisis.

Mr. Jagdeo said, in spite of what has happened, “in the real sector, we have still been able to maintain the revenue. In fact, we have a higher revenue inflow this year than last year.”

He had pointed out that the programmes and budget are larger than the year before and many of the former that were put in place.

President Jagdeo reminded that he has already announced a special housing programme for low income people and said Government is moving to get $400M of the $2 billion in supplementary estimates approved by Parliament soon, to start the Revolving Fund, in anticipation that just about that amount may be used for the year.

“And then, of course, the $1.6 billion will be put in the fund to ensure that people who may have passed the age where they can get a loan from the bank or those who cannot meet the collateral requirements of the bank will be able to own houses, too,” he stated.

President Jagdeo said: “In spite of the global crisis, I think we have managed to hold things steady here, particularly if you look at the macro fundamentals, you will see that they are stable unlike in many countries of the region and the rest of the world.”

He went on: “In Guyana’s case, we think we can cover all of our short term gaps, from the balance of payments perspective, because our budget will be fully financed, so we will not have that unfinanced fiscal gap and the balance of payments gap, too, could be met in the short term and over the medium term.”

On the business front, recently, at the opening of GuyExpo 2009, the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Mr. Gerry Gouveia said that organisation commissioned a study conducted by three economists from the University of Guyana who found that the effects of the global economic crisis on Guyana were minimum on businesses.