2014 Facts
- Growth in Real GDP of 3.8% compared with a revised target of 4.5% and an initial target of 5.6%. Growth was 5.2% in 2013.
- Overall balance of payments deficit of US$116.4 million compared with a deficit of US$119.5 million in 2013, a decrease of 2.6%.
- The 91-day Treasury bill rate increased to 1.67% compared with 1.45% in 2013.
- Inflation rate of 1.2% compared with a target of 5% and actual rate of 0.9% in 2013.
- Depreciation of the Central Bank rate of the Guyana dollar to the US dollar by 0.12%, while the average market commercial bank mid-rates for the US dollar depreciated by 0.87%. The market mid-rates for the Pound Sterling, Canadian Dollar and Euro appreciated by 0.61%, 6.94% and 5.22% respectively, to December 2014.
- Current Revenue of $145.7 billion compared with $136.5 billion in 2013, an increase of 6.7% and a shortfall of $22.5 billion or 13.4% from budgeted.
- A 5% salary increase to all public servants, whose gross basic monthly salaries were greater than $50,000. Persons with salaries that were equal to or lower than $50,000 were given an 8% increase.
- Exports and imports contracted by 15.1% to US$1.2 billion and 4.4% to US$1.8 billion respectively.
- Current account deficit of US$385.18 million (2013: US$456.03 million); and net inflows on the capital account of US$210.11 million (2013: US$314.76 million). Overall fiscal deficit of $34.93 billion compared with $27.03 billion in 2013 and budgeted amount of $32.44 billion.
- Total external reserves at year end for Bank of Guyana of US$665.6 million, a fall from US$776.9 million in 2013, or 14.3%.
2015 Targets
- The initial inflation rate projected was 2.5% with a revised estimate of 0.5%.
- Growth in Real GDP of 3.4%.
- Balance of payments overall deficit of US$113.4 million.
- Capital account to register a surplus of US$61.2 million compared with the revised and budgeted 2014 of US$210.1 million and US$426.2 million respectively. Current account to register a deficit of US$174.7 million.
- Current revenue of $163.7 billion, an increase of 12.3%. There are no GRIF inflows budgeted.
- Overall fiscal deficit of the Central Government at $20.1 billion, 2.9% of GDP.
- Overall deficit of the non-financial public sector at $19.1 billion or 2.8% of GDP.
- Overall deficit of financial operations from $63.2 billion to $50 billion, a decrease of 21%.
- Capital expenditure to decrease by $11.6 billion to $39.4 billion.
- Value added and excise taxes projected to increase by $3.8 billion to $69.5 billion. Customs and trade taxes to decrease by $128.6 million.
See more in 2015 Policy Issues and Targets on pages 19- 24.
Ram & McRae’s Comments
- The Bank of Guyana reported Real GDP in 2014 of 3.9% while 3.8% was reported in the Budget.
- Growth in real GDP for the first half of 2015 was 0.9% making the target of 3.4% challenging, if not unlikely.
- The $128.6 million decrease in Customs and trade taxes has been attributed to the undertaking given by the Government of Guyana to the Caribbean Court of Justice in the case brought by a Surinamese company to repeal the environment tax from July 31, 2015.
- Budgeted Capital Expenditure of $81.2 billion but latest Estimate shows only $52.4 billion was spent. Major shortfalls were realised in several projects including the Low Carbon Development Programme – $17.5 billion,
Information Communication Technology – $2.5 billion and Ministry of Public Works – $6.5 billion.
- The overall deficit of financial operations (Accounting Classification) for 2014 was revised from $37.5 billion to $63.2 billion due mainly to a reclassification of the Petro-Caribe transactions – apparently repayments of the Petro-Caribe debt were not treated as debt repayments. Debt servicing as a percentage of revenue has moved from 6.3% to 23.2% due to the restatement.
