Partnership with Guyanese companies will bring “greatest returns” – Finance Minister tells Jamaican investors

Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, has urged a group of potential investors from Jamaica to partner with Guyanese companies, telling them such ventures will bring the most returns for their businesses.
Dr Singh was at the time speaking at a ‘Do Business’ forum hosted for a 19-member Jamaican Business Mission that was recently in Guyana to explore potential investment opportunities here. The visiting delegation, led by Jamaica’s Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Senator Aubyn Hill, comprised representatives from a range of industries, including agriculture and agro-processing, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, manufacturing, mining, construction among others.

According to the Finance Minister, the unprecedented rapid economic growth that Guyana is currently undergoing is likely to continue across all sectors in the country.
“So, there literally isn’t a sector in Guyana that isn’t ripe with opportunity for investment, and ripe with opportunity for business… And so, I want to urge you, more particularly, to engage with your counterparts in the private sector, because I believe in the business-to-meetings, there is where the potentially greatest return is likely to be realised.
“I will say to you that an investment in Guyana is an investment in a very prosperous medium and long term. This growth is going to continue. You’re going to see continued rapid expansion in the economy, which will generate continued demand for every category of goods and services for a very long time,” the Minister noted. Dr Singh pointed out that the Guyana Government has created the environment to ensure that this current high-level of economic growth will continue in the coming years, not just in the oil and gas sector but also the non-oil economy as well. To this end, he outlined that there have been heavy investments in areas such as the transport infrastructure that would make it easier to do business not just in Guyana but regionally. He stated projects like the Linden to Lethem Road upgrade will open up new opportunities to increase trade with Northern Brazil, while the new Corentyne Berbice River Bridge will also enhance trade with Suriname – both initiatives aimed at positioning Guyana as a major transport hub in the region.
Additionally, efforts are also being made to bolster Guyana’s energy infrastructure. The highly touted Gas-to-Energy (GtE) Project will add 300 megawatts (MW) of clean power to the national grid, cutting electricity prices in Guyana by 50 per cent. This, according to the Finance Minister, will create a quantum shift in Guyana’s competitiveness when it comes to industrial and manufacturing activities.
“We’ve been historically the exporter of just primary commodities. With electricity more competitively priced, what we’re going to be able to do is more manufacturing and industrial-type energy intensive activities,” he explained.
Dr Singh went on to add, “And that is just the first pipeline. We anticipate the second pipeline will land during the course of the next five years which, similarly, will deliver not only more gas for the purposes of electricity generation for industrial activities including things like alumina – another very heavy energy-intensive value-added production – but also things like fertiliser manufacturing – developing capability to manufacture our own fertilisers, cooking gas and all of those things.” The Finance Minister noted that an objective of the Government is to make sure that competitiveness is maintained in Guyana across all sectors. Another major objective also is to ensure that all Guyanese participate in, contribute to, and benefit from, what is taking place here.
It is for this reason, Dr Singh said that Government introduced the local content legislations. These laws identify, in the first instance, 40 categories of goods and services where the oil and gas sector is mandated to procure a listed percentage of their input from Guyanese companies and Guyanese nationals.
“That has worked incredibly successfully, and what it has done is not only has it created business opportunities for Guyanese companies but it has also created incentives for regional and international companies to enter joint ventures with Guyanese companies. And we see now, increasingly, several international and regional companies coming to Guyana, entering strategic joint ventures with Guyanese companies and coming out of those, being able to participate too,” the Minister stressed.
Moreover, Dr Singh reiterated sentiments previously expressed by President Dr Irfaan Ali, emphasising that Guyana’s economic prosperity must translate into broader wellbeing and shared development across the wider region.
“We want to be surrounded by neighbours who are doing well, and so we take our regional obligations seriously… So, we welcome you here. We want as many of us to invest in Guyana. We want as many of you to do business with Guyana and in Guyana and with Guyanese companies. We want as many of you to enter partnerships with Guyanese companies as far as we possibly can. And we want you to do well…”
“So, we’re open for business. Our primary concern, of course, is the wellbeing of the Guyanese people and we believe that as much foreign direct investment as we can get or as much as we can do with people who respect our laws can only redound to the interest of the Guyanese people,” the Finance Minister asserted.