Bank of Guyana (BoG) Governor Lawrence Williams has been seeking to allay fears that the decision to introduce a new $5,000 note will trigger inflation in the country’s economy.
Addressing a seminar on Banking and Investment organized by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Wednesday Williams said the notion that the introduction of a currency note of a higher denomination will lead to inflation is a misnomer, since the circulation of the new note does not necessarily increase the money supply in the economy. Noting that inflation “actually fell” during earlier periods when larger currency notes were introduced into the economy, Williams said the introduction of the new $5,000 note was a matter of “shifting dependency from the $1,000 note to the new, larger denomination”.
The announcement of the imminent introduction of the new note has raised questions about the slow pace of the transformation from cash transactions, despite what Williams said was
