The emerging petroleum industry is an exciting economic and enterprising development. Petroleum will enhance economic growth by increasing investment, including upstream investment, by providing support services to the industry and by generating employment opportunities.
Guyana – a continental state with Caribbean characteristics – has a bright future. The prospects for economic progress and prosperity are limitless, given its bountiful natural and human resources and the significant petroleum discoveries in the country’s maritime zone.
Guyana’s Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040 is its development roadmap for the next twenty years. It aims at:
An inclusive and prosperous Guyana that provides a good quality of life for all its citizens based on sound education and social protection, low-carbon and resilient development, providing new economic opportunities, justice and political empowerment
The Strategy recognizes the catalytic impact which the petroleum industry will have on the country’s economy, including “…providing it with the opportunity to shift its development path, modernize its economy and transform the lives of its citizens.”
Guyana will employ its petroleum industry revenues to strengthen the traditional pillars of the economy, extend and improve its infrastructure, diversify the economy along a green trajectory of development and enhance, further, its human resources and institutional capacity. These developments will catalyze tremendous business and employment opportunities.
Guyana is being prudent about managing its incipient petroleum industry. It is seeking the best advice and assistance and adopting the best international industry practices. It will establish a robust institutional legal and regulatory architecture to manage this industry in a manner which will ensure transparency and which will secure best interests of the country and fair returns for investors and businesses.
Guyana welcomes further investment, both in the petroleum industry and in emerging green economy. It is keen to ensure conditions which encourage increased local content and which promote more partnerships between local and foreign investors.
I welcome all the participants to the Guyana International Petroleum Exhibition (GIPEX) 2019. The exhibition is a demonstration of the country’s interest in the incipient petroleum industry. The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana is committed to ensuring an enabling environment for investment.
I extend best wishes for a successful exhibition.
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