Revenue Sharing & Guyana’s Emerging Oil and Gas Economy
Production of the Guyana Business Journal & Caribbean Policy Consortium.
The Guyana Business Journal (GBJ) & Caribbean Policy Consortium host Transforming Guyana Season II, Episode I, Revenue Sharing, and the Oil & Gas Economy, on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at 10:30 AM EST.
Speakers
- Terrence Blackman: Founder, Guyana Business Journal
- Riyad Insanally: Former Ambassador of Guyana to the U.S.
- Roger Hosein: Senior Lecturer, UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
- Remi Piet: Cofounder and Senior Partner, Embellie Advisory
Relevant Quotations
Riyad Insanally
- “To ensure economic diversification and long-term growth, we need to be looking at the experiences of our close neighbors and countries far afield.”
- “We need to avoid the curse of transfers and subsidies on a widespread scale…We need to look at the application of sound economic theory to be applied to the political economy.”
- “We need the all expertise that is available from multinational investments, multilateral financial institutions and friendly governments. We can benefit from our CARICOM sister states. If we can guarantee Guyana’s own sustainable development, we can underpin the sustainable development of the CARICOM region.”
- “The Natural Resources Fund – the Sovereign Wealth Fund – is going to be a key element in the way that the investment income can be used to underpin capital investment.”
Remi Piet
- “It’s important to have the right actors engaged…you need to be sure there are more structural entities at the round table, sectoral experts are brought in, academic voices and development operators. All these have to be included in different platforms or engagement in terms of going from the revenue sharing financial structure to the actual trickling down…In that case there’s already been a lot of work in Guyana.”
- “The reality of what will make the future of Guyana is the capacity to attract the Diaspora’s investment into some diversified assets in Guyana and production that will make sure there is continuous developments to stability.”
Roger Hosein
- “I am hoping, though, that with the resources that are flowing into Guyana that they spend these and build up institutions and work on their ease of doing business and design appropriately by labor market strategy.”
- “We [Trinidad and Tobago] collected about $75 billion USD in energy runs between 1962 and 2021. Where the resources were used is of great concern to me…I think that’s where Guyana will have to be most careful. Right up front, Guyana has started a long-term smoothing process by having a stabilization fund and resources flow into that. I see lots of capital injections being made into the economy. These capital injections, while some are generalized, must pay attention to the non-energy, non-tradeable sector where revenues have to be balanced in terms of collecting.”
- “My two cents is that the strength of the Guyanese economy in the next 15 years is not the energy sector…The strength of the Guyanese sector 15 years from this point is what and how they manage that energy resource to manage the structure of production, trade and employment so that the nonenergy, non-tradeable sector does not corrode old sectors that generate foreign exchange. We have seen this story a million times.”
- “My humble opinion is that Guyana will be the exception to the rule and not get it all wrong.”
- “The engine for economic transformation must be human capital formation.”
Terrence Blackman, Ph.D., Founder & CEO Guyana Business Journal terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com
Dr. David E. Lewis, Fellow and Co-Chair, Caribbean Policy Consortium DavidLewis@ManchesterTrade.com
