Dear Editor,
Brazil and Guyana share geographical boundaries to Brazil’s extreme north and Guyana’s extreme south and south-west. However, many persons in both Brazil and Guyana are unaware of this fact and this is reflected in the isolation of their citizens from each other.
Transportation links between these two South American countries scarcely assist in the elimination of such isolation. The only air transport link is a commuter one which provides a thrice weekly service between Georgetown and Boa Vista with a 30-seater turbo-propeller aircraft, and there is no sea transportation link between Guyana and any Brazilian port such as Santos (the largest shipping port in Latin America that traded over 72 million tons in 2006).
Guyanese primary trading contact with Brazil is via Boa Vista and Manaus, but the volume is much smaller than that of other Caribbean countries further away such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, which are making better usage of the economic opportunities in Brazil.
On the other side of the border Brazilians have failed to notice that Guyana is a country with territorial dimensions almost equal to Parana or Sao Paulo State, and that it has a lot of forest still preserved. Guyana is bathed by the Atlantic Ocean and with a deep water port (which does not yet exist) the logic of transport in northern Brazil could be reversed in an extremely competent manner.
