Senior Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh revealed during the presentation of the 2024 National Budget that Guyana’s economy experienced a 33% growth rate in the past year. He said this is attributed to the flourishing oil and gas sector, among other factors.
Highlighting the contributions of the oil and gas sector to the economic growth last year, Minister Singh noted that the Stabroek Block’s oil production contributed over US$1.3 Billion in revenues.
Expounding further, Dr. Singh announced that in 2023, 142 lifts of crude oil were received from the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels, with 17 lifts dedicated to the government. These included six from the Liza Destiny FPSO and 11 from the Liza Unity FPSO, resulting in approximately US$1.398B in profit oil.
Overall, Minister Singh said the petroleum industry saw a remarkable 45.9% expansion, producing 142.9 million barrels of oil compared to 101.4 million in 2022.
As for the traditional non-oil sector, he said it grew by 11%, with the mining and quarrying sectors driving a 42.6% growth rate. Further, Minister Singh said the manufacturing sector expanded by 25% in 2023 across all sub-categories.
While Dr. Singh highlighted positive growth prospects, he acknowledged contractions in some sectors. He noted for example that gold, a major export earner, faced challenges with a 2.5% contraction in 2022 and a deepening loss of 11.2% in 2023. The bauxite industry also contracted by 20.4%.
Despite this, he stated that Guyana’s economy is expected to further flourish this year, with growth forecast to meet 34.3 percent.
