Business Review

A vigorous debate is ongoing regarding the operationalisation of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF).

Several observers have noted that the account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York does not constitute the National Resource Fund (NRF).

The previous column explored the question of money ‘printing’ and inflation.

One question that was unanswered in the series of columns on the government’s overdraft at the BoG pertains to inflation.

Ever since three very famous Harvard economists – D. Rodrik, R.

The Guyana Government has decided to fund 20,000 scholarships for various online degree and certificate programmes, which are going to be housed under the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL).

Electoral reform ought to be one of the core institutional reforms needed for Guyana to evolve into a modern society without extreme inequality and circumvent political instability.

Today’s column explores the proposed gas-to-shore project. Off the bat, I must declare that converting the present heavy fuel power plants to natural gas makes sense.

The past three columns explored the government’s overdraft at the BoG.

My previous two columns showed that the overdraft or negative balance was used to finance the government’s large annual fiscal deficits.

The previous column (April 4: ‘The government’s overdraft at BoG, the fiscal deficit and corruption’) explained that the government’s fiscal deficit — which must not be confused with current account deficit as one online commenter did — has to be financed by (i) borrowing, (ii) seeking foreign grants, (iii) using previous savings, and/or (iv) creating money from its deposit at the Bank of Guyana (BoG).

The government’s overdraft (negative balance) as at end February 2021 stood at G$139.7 billion.

The Bank of Guyana Act makes it clear that the central bank is the government’s bank.

I have written over ten columns on the foreign exchange (FX) market since 2009.

My intention was to write about the recent discontents surrounding to the alleged unwillingness of commercial banks to extend credit to small business.

If we want to say something about the future state of an event, we have to account for the initial conditions.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) concurs with the government’s reported Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 4.1% for 2018.

There have been several lofty predictions of gross revenues that the Guyana government is likely to receive.

Recently the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) expressed strong opposition to the notion of a common external tariff (CET) on refined sugar imported into the Caribbean Community.

Many Guyanese are now aware of some version of the natural resource curse (NRC).