The Barbados-based financial institution, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) projects that Guyana, along with Suriname and Haiti will take the lead amongst the regional economies, in terms of accelerating growth in the next two years.
This is according to the CDB’s President Dr William Warren Smith, during the bank’s annual press conference on February 11, at its headquarters in Barbados.
The bank has projected that the Caribbean region in 2014 will experience an overall growth of 3.7 percent, with much of Guyana’s growth being driven by its mining sector.
“Guyana is a good example of a country that has done some of the right things, and at the same time has also benefitted from good fortune. They have come a very, very long distance in terms of their fiscal situation. They have been responsible in terms of addressing it,” the CDB head said.
“Guyana has a very vibrant mining sector, and even though gold prices might be somewhat down at this particular point in time, there are still a lot of investments that are taking place in the mining sector generally, and in gold in particular,” Dr Smith told regional journalists.
“Generally there is a lot of vibrancy in the Guyanese economy. Just by casual observation one can see that there is a lot of construction that is taking place in the country, I like to say that whenever I go to Guyana you can almost see the country changing in front of your eyes, and so that is just a casual indication of the extent to which economic activity is vibrant and buoyant in that country.”
The CDB President said, there were some very good lessons to be learnt from Guyana’s experiences as, Guyana has followed a very tough road, but the good news, is that Guyana has shown resilience and responsibility in the management of its economy. It has taken advantage of the breaks that it has been fortunate to have, “and that is an important lesson because sometimes countries which were in a much better position that Guyana, in the past did not take advantage of those opportunities. So just from this standpoint of lesson learnt, Guyana is a study,” he asserted.
Guyana for the CDB also represents real opportunity, Dr Smith explained because, “if we want to sustain ourselves as an institution, we have to have a very close working relationship with Guyana, because Guyana, Suriname the large countries represent opportunity for growth diversification and expansion and that is very critical for the longevity and the sustainability of the Caribbean Development Bank.”
Guyana continues to benefit from its partnership with the financial institution, having been a founder member since the institution entered into force on January 26, 1970.
In 2012, 33% of the US$166M in loan approvals by the institution was for projects in Guyana. “Even through the most difficult of times that Guyana has experienced through the year Guyana has met its obligation to the Caribbean Development Bank and we are very grateful for that.”
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