Guyana: The world’s fastest-growing economy

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

The former British colony in South America boasts the world’s fastest-growing economy at the moment – it expanded by 62 per cent last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The reason is oil. Since 2015, US oil major Exxon and its partners have made a series of massive discoveries in Guyanese waters, catapulting the country into the world’s top 20 in terms of reserves.

That’s bringing billions of dollars into the economy but also challenges: how can Guyana avoid the ‘resource curse’ - the mismanagement and corruption that have afflicted other commodity-rich nations? How can it exploit the oil bonanza with a population of less than a million people? And has the oil come too late anyway – just as the world move away from fossil fuels?

We talk to the country’s president Irfaan Ali.

Presenter and producer: Gideon Long

(Image: President Irfaan Ali. Credit: Keon Blades/ Office of the President Guyana)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my name's Gideon Long, and we're starting this edition of Business Daily with a quiz
0:04.3	question. Which country boasts the fastest growing economy in the world at the moment?
0:11.4	The answer is Guyana, in the northeast corner of South America. It's a former British colony,
0:17.8	the only English-speaking country in the continent.
0:26.3	And according to the International Monetary Fund, its economy grew by 62% last year.
0:29.7	It's expected to add another 37% this year.
0:32.2	So what's happening in Guyana?
0:35.2	The answer, in a word, is oil.
0:46.8	In 2015, the US oil giant Exxon made its first big discovery in Guyanese waters.
0:53.7	More followed, so much so that the country now has reserves of around 11 billion barrels of oil. That's catapulted it into the top 20 in the
0:56.7	world in terms of its oil potential, on a par with countries like Brazil, Algeria and Norway.
1:03.6	Production started in 2019 and is expected to quadruple by the end of the decade. That'll bring
1:10.1	billions of dollars into Guyana.
1:12.6	But it's when you look at the country's population that the numbers start to look really special.
1:18.3	Guyana is about the size of Britain, but while Britain is home to 65 million people,
1:23.8	Guyana has fewer than a million. Most of the country is rainforest. So the potential for growth
1:30.2	per capita is massive. It's already gone up sharply. Back in 2015, when Exxon made its first
1:37.4	discovery, per capita gross domestic product in Guyana was 11,000 US dollars. This year, the IMF predicts it will top 60,000.
1:47.7	It seemed like a good time to make a phone call to the capital Georgetown and speak to the country's
1:52.6	President Irfan Ali.
1:58.7	President Irfan Ali, thank you very much for joining us.
2:02.2	Can you start by giving us an idea of what Guiana feels like at the moment?
	...

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