80 January 2016 - Business View Caribbean
societies, or other corporate body.
Historically, the economy of Guyana has been built
around agriculture, notably sugar and rice, and ex-
tractive materials, such as gold, bauxite, and timber.
Jordan maintains that that model will likely continue
into the foreseeable future. “There is no push towards
industrialization,” he asserts. “There is a push to more
value-added in the extractive and agricultural indus-
tries because those are more close to us. Industrializa-
tion would require an energy base that we don’t have
at the moment. It would take a while before that initia-
tive is pursued in earnest.”
Key to jump-starting those industries is to “use the pri-
vate sector not only as an engine of growth, but as
a driver of growth,” Jordan says. “But there’s only so
much capital that we have here in Guyana – it’s a very
small country in terms of population and doesn’t gen-
erate a great deal of income. So, we want to invite for-
eign investment in bauxite, and gold, and forestry, and
in non-traditional areas like light manufacturing, plan-
tation agriculture, tourism, eco-tourism, and services
like data processing and IT services. We are trying to
diversify the base of the economy to produce wealth
by providing the incentives – land, business, tax – to
attract foreign and domestic investment in both tradi-
tional and non-traditional areas. The idea is to expand
the wealth base and at the same time, provide jobs.”
In order to advertise to the world that Guyana is open
for business with a new cast running the show, it has
enlisted the help of its Foreign Ministry. “Our Foreign
Ministry has been charged with ‘economic diplo-
macy,’” Jordan explains. “That is, to use our foreign
relations aspect not only in the traditional diplomacy
sense, but as the means of attracting foreign invest-
ment to the country. At our embassies, we are trying to
reorient our diplomats and consulars about selling the
country; providing them with material about the areas
that are available and the concessions and processes
involved, and so on.”
While Guyana’s Ministry of Finance embarks upon its
tasks of helping the country to develop both economi-
cally and socially, while also providing support and as-
sistance to investors so that businesses can prosper
