Introduction
Today’s column continues “counting the cost” of the continued economic setbacks/reverses facing Guyana’s infant oil and gas sector, as a consequence of the 2020 general crisis, as I have portrayed this crisis previously, in some detail. To be sure, I have used an approach that distinguishes both macro and micro-economic appraisals of the cost. To date, the macroeconomic approach was addressed last week. And, that was followed by an introduction to the microeconomic approach.
Briefly, the macroeconomic approach has been based on using downward revisions made this year, as the general crisis unfolded to Guyana’s forecasted 2020 GDP growth rate and compared these to the original Q4, 2019 IMF projected growth rate of 85.6 percent, as a broad proxy indicator of the macroeconomic impact. The result shows that these downward revisions range in value from 40 to 60 percent lower than the IMF Q4, 2019 forecasted growth rate of 85.6 percent!
