Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh said that from all preliminary indications, Guyana’s economy performed well in the first half of 2011, as major economic indicators show improvement over the corresponding period of 2010.
He was speaking to reporters at a press conference at his ministry’s boardroom on Monday.
“The preliminary signs [show] that the economy performed well in the first half of the year,” he said, noting that rice and sugar did well compared to last year’s corresponding period, and that bauxite production was picking up.
He said that the results were similar in the non-traditional sectors.
But the minister cautioned that two weeks after the close of the reporting period is hardly enough time to gather the required information about the true state of the economy.
He said that  data gathering with a view to presenting the true picture of how the country’s economy performed during the first half of the year is ongoing.
Rice and sugar, two of the country’s biggest foreign exchange earners, have seen highly favourable results for the first half of this year, and this is likely to add to the aggregate performance of the economy for the entire year, the minister posited.