Guyana Business Overview

Business and Economic Overview

Guyana is the 130th largest export economy in the world.[1] The top exports of Guyana are Gold ($848m), Railway Cargo containers ($239m), Rice ($232m),

Aluminium Ore ($155m) and Raw Sugar ($91.6m). The top export destinations of Guyana are Canada($500m), the United States ($324m), Trinidad and Tobago ($204m), Panama ($157m) and Belgium-Luxembourg ($127m).[2]

Its top imports are Refined Petroleum ($348m), Excavation Machinery ($91.3m), Large Construction Vehicles ($41.8m), Cars ($41m) and Packaged Medicaments ($38.4m).[3] The top import origins are the Unites States ($483m), Trinidad and Tobago ($471m), China ($174m), Suriname ($114m) and Japan ($51.4m).[4]

Business have the right to own property and maintain it and this is protected by law, but corruption and organized crime sometimes deter private-sector business activity.[5] Businesses have stated that they are affected by several factors when doing business. These include telecommunications, electricity, transportation, access to land, tax rates, tax administration, customs and trade regulations, labour regulations, labour workforce, business regulations, access to finance, cost of finance, political environment, and the informal sector.[6]

Data from several of these factors confirm the constraints businesses face in Guyana. The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, identified inefficient government bureaucracy, corruption, access to finance, crime and theft, taxes, and inadequate supply of infrastructure as the most problematic factors for doing business in Guyana.[7]

The 2014 PROTEqIN survey asked the local businesses to rank various obstacles as most serious, second most serious, and third most serious constraints.

The survey shows that  businesses rank the following as the most serious obstacles to their operations: electricity (15.1 percent), corruption (12.6 percent), tax rates (11.8 percent), practices of competitors in the informal sector (8.4 percent), telecommunications (7.6 percent), access to finance (7.6 percent), access to land for expansion/relocation (6.7 percent), inadequately educated workforce (6.7 percent), crime, theft, and disorder (5.9 percent), political environment (5 percent), transportation (4.2 percent), customs and trade regulations (4.2 percent), cost of finance (2.5 percent), and macroeconomic environment (1.7 percent)[8]

Corruption was the second highest-ranked constraint identified by businesses as the most serious obstacle. A relatively small percentage of businesses surveyed indicated that they were expected to pay a bribe to obtain an, operating license (1.9 percent), electrical connection (1.7), telephone connection (1.7percent), import license (1.7 percent), water connection (0.8 percent), and construction permit (0.8 percent). Based on the survey, approximately 6.7 percent of the businesses indicated they were expected to pay a bribe to obtain the contract, while 3.3 percent of the businesses claimed they were expected to pay a bribe to tax officers.[9]

References

[1] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/guy/

[2] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/guy/

[3] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/guy/

[4] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/guy/

[5] Freedom in the World Guyana, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/guyana

[6] Constraints affecting Guyana;s Private Sector: Survey Results, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Elton Bollers and Mark Wenner, April 2018, file:///Users/sumitasaini/Downloads/Constraints-Affecting-Guyana-Private-Sector-Survey-Results.pdf

[7] Constraints affecting Guyana;s Private Sector: Survey Results, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Elton Bollers and Mark Wenner, April 2018, file:///Users/sumitasaini/Downloads/Constraints-Affecting-Guyana-Private-Sector-Survey-Results.pdf

[8] Constraints affecting Guyana;s Private Sector: Survey Results, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Elton Bollers and Mark Wenner, April 2018, file:///Users/sumitasaini/Downloads/Constraints-Affecting-Guyana-Private-Sector-Survey-Results.pdf

[9] Constraints affecting Guyana;s Private Sector: Survey Results, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Elton Bollers and Mark Wenner, April 2018, file:///Users/sumitasaini/Downloads/Constraints-Affecting-Guyana-Private-Sector-Survey-Results.pdf