AS news of Guyana’s positive economic growth continues to make waves across the country, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, has said that the positive performance will continue throughout the year.

The senior minister spoke about the prospects of the country during an interview with the National Communications Network (NCN) on Thursday.
During this programme, he discussed the details of the Ministry of Finance’s Mid-Year Report. The report highlighted the performance of the Guyana economy, which grew in real terms by 14.5 per cent, while the non-oil GDP grew by 4.8 per cent in the first six months of 2021.

“Looking ahead for the remainder of the year, we anticipate continued growth and so the economy as a whole, we are looking at our latest projections, will grow in about the vicinity of 20 per cent. Our current projections show that the non-oil economy will show 3.7 per cent,” Dr. Singh said.

He reminded that the first half of 2021 has not been an easy period and pointed to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the floods.
He said in addition to the global health crisis, Guyana was faced with the environmental shocks of the devastating and unprecedented nationwide flooding.

To this end, the senior minister said: “When you consider the fact that you had the reality of COVID-19 and you consider the fact that you had the flood impacting a number of sectors in a very significant way, you come to realise that recording growth of 4.8 per cent is in fact an extremely commendable achievement.”

This growth, Dr. Singh said, came out of a number of important sectors, including rice, notwithstanding the countrywide flooding; increased quarrying, as well as manufacturing.

Considering the country’s current economic performance, the senior minister pointed out that one must take into account the poor fiscal state the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government inherited from the former administration.

“We assumed office when the economy was literally on its death bed. As a result of bad policies for five years, as a result of mismanagement of most of the productive sectors, as a result of an environment that was hostile to investment and the private sector, as a result of the refusal to respect the no-confidence motion and then the refusal to respect the elections, by the time you got to August 2020, the economy was in a state of collapse,” he said.

Rebuilding the economy and investor confidence has not been an easy task, the senior minister related, but affirmed that President Dr. Irfaan Ali is keen on engaging with the local and international private sector to send a very clear signal that his government is deeply concerned with economic growth and prosperity.

Going forward, minister Singh expects an aggressive expansion of all other sectors in Guyana, as he pointed out that logically, Guyana is the place to “set up shop.”

Dr. Singh said: “I anticipate continued strong investor interest and that is a direct result of the policy environment that we have created since we have assumed office.”

Earlier this year, the senior finance minister indicated that Guyana would be one of the fastest growing economies in terms of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and would see rapid transformation in a number of sectors, especially since the government would make efforts to boost the non-oil economy as well.

(DPI)