Guyana aims to attract US$2 billion in Saudi investments

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, requested during meetings Sunday with a Saudi Arabian delegation to allocate US$2 billion in investments in the Caribbean country, which is trying to develop its oil sector to the maximum.

Ali recommended that the two sides identify priority areas and establish two private and public sector working groups to launch the fund.

According to the Guyanese Presidency’s press release, the president also raised the idea that the fund should be located in Guyana and cover the rest of the Caribbean.

For his part, Saudi Deputy Investment Minister Badr al Badr assured that his country is ready to make money available from the Saudi Fund for Development and the Export-Import Bank.

“There are many projects that can be tackled with these Saudi funds for development,” said the official, who heads a 65-member delegation that includes senior executives of Saudi companies.

Al Badr also advanced that his country could share with Guyana “the different options to use its new oil and gas revenues to build and diversify its economy.”

In addition, he called on the Guyanese government to provide incentives to Saudi companies and suggested that they could provide experts to help the Caribbean country become a major oil producer.

In this regard, Ali said that Guyana would establish a special office for Saudi Arabia in the Ministry of Finance and promised to remove bureaucratic hurdles as much as possible.

He also advanced that Guyana may provide Saudi Arabia land to construct an embassy that would also serve other Caribbean nations.

The Caribbean has become a priority area for Saudi Arabia for investment and business deals, as evidenced by the same delegation’s visit this week to Jamaica.

The Saudi mission was to explore investment opportunities in Jamaica in the tourism, agriculture, infrastructure, real estate, and logistics sectors.

Guyana, however, is of particular interest, as recognized by Al Badr, who called the country “a key player in the region and hopefully a key partner in the global energy sector.”

Guyana’s oil reserves are estimated to exceed 11 billion barrels, the third-largest in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, holds about 17% of proven oil reserves (more than 260 billion barrels) and produced, in 2020, about 9,000 barrels per day, according to OPEC data.

With information from EFE