– ECLAC report highlights
GUYANA has been transformed from a country that was once swallowed in debt to a nation with a public debt that continues to display a downward trend.
This is according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC)’s “Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2024” report.

“In Guyana the public debt has been falling since 2022, owing to high rates of output growth, close to 40 per cent in real terms in 2023, reflecting the start of offshore oil production,” the report read.
Further, the United Nations ECLAC’s “Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2023” report had said that Guyana’s debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio fell by an impressive 16 percentage points between 2021 and 2022, as a result of a 62.3 per cent increase in economic output in real terms, due to the commencement of offshore oil-and-gas production.

The report highlighted: “This increase was due to the central government’s first withdrawal from the sovereign wealth fund set up to manage the country’s oil revenues (the Natural Resource Fund), with a view to financing public investment in priority sectors.”
Under the leadership of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), there have been active steps to make strategic investments and manage the nation’s finances responsibly.

Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, had previously stated that the government has been borrowing prudently to finance crucial investment initiatives and to ramp up social programmes.
“As the economy grows, our capacity to borrow increases and we intend to use that capacity to finance an aggressive programme to modernise and transform our country and improve the lives of Guyanese peoples,” Dr. Singh had said in a previous interview.
Despite criticism and naysayers, the PPP/C government successfully reduced the country’s debt burden, achieving a debt-to-GDP ratio of only 23 per cent as of 2022.

General Secretary of the PPP, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo had also previously highlighted the once deplorable state of Guyana’s economy.
The PPP/C General Secretary disclosed that the country’s debt was nine times the size of the economy and the country was using over 100 per cent of revenue to service debt.

Prior to the new-found oil wealth, he said that much was done by the PPP/C to lower Guyana’s debt. In fact, in 2015, the nation’s debt had been reduced from 900 per cent to around 45 per cent of the GDP.
In contrast with the previous percentage that is over 100 per cent of Guyana’s revenue to service its debt, Jagdeo revealed that last year less than 10 per cent was used and therefore, this is an impressive accomplishment for the nation.