Guyana to use newfound oil wealth to diversify investments into other sectors

The world’s fastest-growing economy, Guyana, is mulling its newfound oil and gas wealth to fund investments in other sectors that will reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons, its President Mohamed Irfan Ali said during a trip to the USA.

The Guyanese government is planning such a move to use the revenues from the site to finance investments in mining, tourism, agriculture, and other sectors, added President Ali.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Guyana

“While Guyana is an emerging hydrocarbon market, our economy will not be hydrocarbon-based,” Bloomberg quoted Ali telling the Atlantic Council in Washington DC on 25 July.

According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast, Guyana’s economy will grow 47% in FY 2022-23 on the back of oil exploration, and the government forecasts output of about 800,000 barrels per day by 2025.

As per the details, the offshore oil deposits, which Exxon Mobil Corp first successfully drilled in 2015, are so large relative to Guyana’s population of 780,000 that some projections show the country on track to overtake Kuwait to become the world’s largest per-capita crude producer.

The only English-speaking South American country, neighboring Venezuela and Brazil, mulls using the funds from its newfound oil and gas wealth to build roads and infrastructure to open up other areas of the economy, including its gold, diamond, bauxite, and copper mines, Ali said.

Apart from this, President Ali said the country also wants to save the Amazonian rainforest, which covers most of its territory and has the potential to generate more than US$100 million per year in carbon credits.

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