Guyana’s multiple major oil discoveries beginning in May 2015 may have set the country on the path to realising a level of wealth not before seen in the Caribbean, but a recent World Bank Review still regards the country as being “one of the poorest in South America.”
The Bank’s Guyana Country Review, last updated on September 3 this year also states that “the country has “the highest emigration rate in the world” with 80% of nationals with tertiary education leaving and more than 55% of its citizens residing abroad. These considerations, among others, the Bank says, places Guyana “among the largest recipients of remittances relative to GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
According to the review, recent rises in active cases of COVID-19 and deaths are cause for concern in a country which, it says, faces “many challenges from the closure of borders and drops in commodity prices during the pandemic,” along with its continued heavy dependence “on exports of gold, bauxite, and agricultural products.”
