– businesspeople cashed in on holiday season

PROPRIETORS, vendors and even the average “sweetie” vendor were counting their profits after the conclusion of what they called a “fruitful” Christmas season, which they hoped could be every month.

Customary at this time of year, shoppers were seen hustling and bustling in the popular commercial areas such as Regent Street, Stabroek, parts of Kitty and even on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) at the Plaisance and Mon Repos Markets.
The increased commerce was welcomed by businesspeople, who said they worked hard throughout the year and, therefore, counted the higher-than-normal profits as their bonus.
President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Nicholas Deygoo-Boyer, could not immediately give an analysis of the season, but said it was good for business.

“I have not touched base with members but what we heard is that it has not been as robust as last year…We are looking at elections in March, so people would be conservative heading into the elections year,” said Boyer in an invited comment on Sunday.
The GCCI president was, however, open to doing an official survey to ascertain the performance of the business community during the Christmas season. The results will be made public in January.

The Guyana Chronicle, in an attempt to do its own assessment, visited markets and business places, on Sunday. There were mixed views but most people said they were able to secure a profit and have a jolly Christmas season.
“This year, it was good for me…I have my own customers, so people come out and shop as per normal around this time, but, I am happy,” said a grocery vendor, Ayesha Jervis, who plies her trade at the Mon Repos Market.
Jervis said the season did not meet her exact expectation, but she believes that it will be better in the years to come.

“We selling man, we selling…we have been selling here for years and the Christmas season is always nice,” said the vendor.

An egg vendor, Seeta Singh, who plies her trade at the Plaisance Market, said: “I didn’t have hands to sell”- the colloquial saying which basically means that business was buzzing.
“Christmas did well for me this year and I expect things to get better in the New Year, especially after elections,” said Singh, adding that she hopes that one day business will be booming year round and not just at Christmas.
Vendors of Bourda Market were also hopeful that one day there would be consistent business throughout the year.

One of the Bourda vendors who identified himself as Powers, said business was good but would have been better if the elections were not around the corner. He said business would have boomed if there wasn’t the usual “elections fear,” but he was, nonetheless, satisfied with his returns and expects the new year to be better.
“There will always be positive and negative no matter what they do…but business people will say it was not good because people expected the big kick with the government payment, however business was still good,” said proprietor of D. Singh’s Trading, Shivnarine Singh.

He said most of his stocks depleted and he is in the process of restocking, but he too believed that if elections were not close, business would have been better.
Guyana, despite the political climate, has been performing well in terms of economic development. Testimony to Guyana’s potential rise in the global arena was the rating from New York-based stock market, NASDAQ, which listed the South American country as the fastest growing economy in the world. According to NASDAQ, Guyana’s projected growth rate from 2018-2021 is 16.3 per cent.

The stock market said that with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) size of $3.63 billion (2018 Rank: 160), a growth rate of 4.1 per cent in 2018 and 4.6 per cent in 2019, Guyana’s economy is expected to grow by 33.5 per cent and 22.9 per cent in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Those projections climbed in a report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which stated that Guyana’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to grow by approximately 86 per cent in 2020, almost twenty times more than the projected 4.4 per cent growth for this year.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has also forecasted a staggeringly high growth rate for Guyana for next year. ECLAC noted that Guyana’s growth rate is pegged at 4.5 per cent for this year, while next year it will be 85.5 per cent.

A report from Bloomberg stated that with such figures, Guyana’s GDP will grow fourteen times as fast as China’s next year. Further projections by the IMF showed that real GDP will grow by 4.8 per cent in 2021, 20.6 per cent in 2022 and 26.2 per cent in 2023. Guyana’s $4 billion annual GDP is also expected to expand to about $15 billion by 2024, said the IMF. The financial institution said the commencement of oil production will substantially improve Guyana’s medium- and long-term outlook. Guyana is projected to be among the world’s largest per-capita oil producers by 2025.

The oil sector is projected to grow rapidly, accounting for around 40 per cent of GDP by 2024 and supporting additional fiscal spending annually of 6.5 per cent of non-oil GDP on average over the medium term, which will help meet critical social and infrastructure needs
ECLAC said the Guyana Government will receive approximately 14.5 per cent of all oil revenue in 2020. In addition to potential oil revenues, there has already been a notable increase in the Foreign Direct Investments here. According to ECLAC, Guyana took in US$495 million in FDIs in 2018, which was more than double what it had received in 2017.