GUYANA could soon see investment interest from one of the Gulf region’s major retail players, with Chairman and Managing Director of Abu Dhabi-based LuLu Group International, M. A. Yusuff Ali, signalling his commitment to exploring opportunities in the country.
Yusuff Ali expressed his interest during a meeting with President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, indicating that a technical team from the group is expected to visit Guyana within the next 30 days to assess potential areas for investment.
The planned visit is expected to provide the group with an opportunity to examine Guyana’s investment landscape and identify areas where LuLu could establish a presence.
LuLu Retail is among the largest retailers in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), operating 267 stores across six countries, while its global sourcing network spans 85 countries.
President Ali has maintained that Guyana’s economic transformation must extend beyond oil production, with greater emphasis being placed on value creation and investments that can support broad-based and sustainable economic growth.
During a recent event, Dr Ali had said that the world is now looking at Guyana in a fundamentally different way, with investors increasingly focused on the non‑oil economy.
The president stressed that this shift did not occur by accident but is the result of “careful planning” and a decisive understanding of building a diverse economy.
Framing the moment as part of a broader development vision, Dr Ali said the country is on the cusp of an “unbelievable future” for every citizen, provided that Guyanese remain committed to hard work, sacrifice, and national cohesion.
“This country is going to have an unbelievable future. Every citizen of this country will have that, but it will not happen by accident. It is happening because of careful planning. It must happen because of the ability to sacrifice [and] hard work,” he said, adding:
“Nothing can replace hard work. The essentials of success have never changed. Essentials of success remain the ability to work and work hard, the ability to sacrifice and commit, regardless of how much money a country have [sic], [or] how much revenue is coming in.”
He maintained that the current investment wave reflects a deliberate effort to present Guyana internationally, not just as an oil producer, but as a hub for food security, sustainable tourism, and value‑added manufacturing in the wider Caribbean and South American space.
“The world is discovering a Guyana that is completely different,” the president said, adding that the focus on value creation and production is central to ensuring that prosperity is broad‑based and sustainable.
President Ali sought to distance Guyana’s global image from a single‑sector story, insisting that the country must be seen and must present itself as a diversified production centre, a tourism destination and a logistics and aviation hub.
He noted that the government’s focus on value creation, rather than mere extraction or import dependence, is central to ensuring that the benefits of growth are “broad‑based and sustainable,” and that communities across Guyana share in the gains from investment.
