-Mid-Year Report
FOREIGN Direct Investment (FDI) increased by 9.2 percent in the first half of 2011 and this was driven principally by the upsurge in activities in the mining and telecommunications sectors.
This is according to the Mid-Year Report 2011 on the state of the economy, tabled in the National Assembly on Thursday. The report said that taken together, these developments resulted in the Bank of Guyana ending the first half of 2011 with $779 M in external reserves.

The report said that the commercial banks weighted average lending rate declined from 11.95 percent to 11.65 percent and small savings rate went down by 16 basis points to 2.51 percent.

The report said that at the end of June, 2011, Guyana’s total external public debt amounted to US$1.110 billion.
The report revised the country’s overall inflation rate for the year to 4.8 percent. It is pegged at three percent for the first half of the year.

“Central Government Revenue for the first half of 2011 amounted to $61.5 billion, 12.8 percent higher than the corresponding period for 2010, bearing testimony to the growth momentum of the economy, as well as the reforms made to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of tax administration capabilities,” the report said.

Tax revenue collections for the period amounted to $57 billion, 11.4 percent above 2010 collections. Internal revenue collections amounted to $26.5 billion, 10.2 percent over 2010’s first-half collections. “This reflected the continued expansion of private sector activity in the productive sectors, with corporation taxes amounting to $10.6 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent, while income taxes collected from the self employed registered an 11.6 percent increase to $1.5 billion,” the report said.

“Collections from value added and excise taxes during the first half of the year increased by 10.7 percent to $25.7 billion. Of this amount, value added tax collections totalled $14.6 billion, reflecting increased imports and domestic trading activity, while excise taxes totalled $11.1 billion notwithstanding the lowering of fuel tax rates,” it said.

“Customs and trade tax collections totalled $4.8 billion for the first half of 2011, representing a 23.4 percent increase over 2010, primarily attributed to higher import duties collected, consistent with the higher levels of imports of most categories of goods,” the report said.

Speaking to the media on Friday, President Bharrat Jagdeo said the positive fiscal results of the economy during the first half of 2011 have nullified opposition assertions that the economy is being built by drug money.

He said that the country’s growth is enviable in any part of the world.

“I am extremely pleased with the Mid-Year Report on the economy…It is a great achievement for a country to keep a high level of growth in light of the global turmoil,” he said, pointing to the almost six percent growth for the first six months of the year.

He said that Guyana for the past six years has been on a significantly elevated growth trajectory and this has continued in the first half of this year.

“We had a 5.9 percent growth which is an enviable figure anywhere in the world. Our exports increased by 30 percent. We have had double-digit growth in the mining sector,” he said.

“We had the largest rice crop ever in our history. We had the highest sugar production since 2004,” he said.