Guyana’s population growth reflects Govt’s housing, investment drive – Minister Singh

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, said Tuesday that the Report of the National 2022 Population and Housing Census vindicates much of the successes in Guyana under the leadership of President Ali’s government.
Dr. Singh explained that this is because government has been investing much effort to make the country a more hospitable one and a more attractive place for Guyanese nationals to live, work, invest, save, earn and retire through the creation of economic opportunities and the establishment of conditions that are conducive to these said objectives being realised.
The minister made the remarks as he welcomed Tuesday’s official release of the preliminary report of the National 2022 Population and Housing Census.
“We have also invested a lot of effort in ensuring that we have improved social services, including an improved public health care system, which ultimately has been contributing to improved medical and health outcomes and improved longevity of our citizens. And so the fact that we are seeing the kind of population growth that we are seeing comes really as no surprise to any of us because we are seeing more and more Guyanese people choosing to remain in Guyana and work for entrepreneurial opportunities,” the Finance Minister emphasised as he pointed to the fact that the country is witnessing more and more Guyanese who might have, in a previous era, migrated out of Guyana, now remigrating or exploring options for remigration back to their homeland.

Foreign- born population
Minister Singh added that another significant observation is the growing presence of a foreign-born population, and explained further that this should come as no surprise.
“The expansion of foreign-born nationals in Guyana – some of them are people who might be children of members of the diaspora or remigrated with their family – but many of them are of course persons who may have migrated from neighbouring countries, and you know just as well as I do, the realities of cross border migration,” Dr. Singh reminded.
Pointing to another occurrence such as many persons coming to Guyana either as investors or as workers or students, he noted, “We have a situation now in Guyana that we did not have before, which is that foreign born students are coming to Guyana to study at universities in Guyana – a phenomenon that did not exist a generation ago or even perhaps a decade before.”
“Today people are coming to Guyana from other countries to study, and people are coming to Guyana from other countries to work, and people are coming to Guyana from other countries to invest; and we see that reflected in the expansion in the foreign-born population,” he underscored.

Opening and development of new lands
Pointing to some of the other key findings of the preliminary report, Minister Singh said it has highlighted some other very interesting demographic trends including the regional distribution of the population with Region Three now being the second most populous region taking Region Six out of that position.
“Here again I don’t believe that this is a finding that will take anybody by surprise because we are seeing the opening of new lands and the developing of new housing areas, the allocation of house lots in Region Three – entire housing areas that did not exist a generation ago, and that did not exist even a decade ago, that are heavily populated,” he explained.
The minister attributed this not only to the movement of people and government’s vast housing drive but also to the vast new infrastructure built out by the current administration, including the new Demerara River Bridge, the new four lane road from Schoonard to Crane, and new roads on the West Coast and West Bank, among other developments.
He reminded that work has already started on a brand-new road to Parika as the expansion in economic activity continues in Region Three. The continuous expansion of the Region’s population and the demand being made on the region’s transport infrastructure.

Trends
“We see other trends too; we saw – and it is worthwhile to mention that during the period of 2012 to 2022 – we saw a 42 percent increase in building stock over a ten year period, with the number of buildings in our country increasing from 219,509 to 311,742,” Minister Singh noted, as he pointed to the figures released from the preliminary Census.
“We have seen the construction boom that has been taking place in our country, the build out of industrial and commercial buildings at a pace that has never before been seen in our country; more industrial buildings, more commercial buildings, more warehouses, more factories and more processing plants, more office buildings; and the residential housing boom.

Household size
Minister Singh then concluded that government’s vast housing programme over the years has resulted in the reduction in the average household size.
“And we saw a slide that pointed to the fact that in 1991, the average household size was approaching five—it was in fact 4.7. In 2022 the average household size is 3.23 – and here again this too coincides with what we know to be happening. It is consistent with the aggressive housing programme. President Ali and indeed previous PPP/C governments have made it an express policy objective that we want every single Guyanese family to be able to own their own home, and we want more persons to become homeowners thus, we have implemented specific policies to make home ownership more affordable,” he stated.
Over the years, under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration, more house lots have been allocated to thousands of citizens, with more young professionals and turnkey homes allocated younger persons.
Government also removed Value Added Tax (VAT) on basic building materials, along with implementation of financial sector policies that have seen the reduction in interest rates on loans to boost home ownership.
The country also saw an increase in the ceiling on the low income housing window, and there has been successive increases in the ceiling for housing loans granted by the New Building Society (NBS) among other housing initiatives. These were all aimed at making home ownership more affordable countrywide.