Up to earlier this week, the Government of Guyana had not provided a response to the warning from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the much-vaunted PetroCaribe Agreement between Venezuela and several Caribbean countries—under which the latter receive oil from Caracas under various concessionary arrangements—might stand imperiled in the face of plummeting global oil prices. There were signs, however, that the warning had not gone unnoticed by the authorities here.
On Monday, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) the state-run entity that oversees the delivery of rice and paddy to Caracas under the agreement responded to an inquiry by this newspaper by talking up its efforts to further broaden the base of the country’s international rice market.
