Due to the COVID-19 impact globally, especially on the oil market, Guyana’s projected 2020 growth rate has been revised from 87% to 57%, Governor of the Bank of Guyana Dr Gobind Ganga said on Friday, while also confirming that the non-oil sector is headed to negative growth.
“Our growth rate with oil was about 87% projected, non-oil growth would have been 5% or just about there. Our inflation rate would have been very, very low single digit (below 1%) and we would have had an increase in reserves. Our exchange rate, we expected that to remain stable. With oil after COVID, we would have projected a 57% growth rate…,” Ganga told a Caribbean Economic Forum, hosted by the Bank of Barbados and where he was one of four Caribbean governors.
Guyana’s Central Bank governor spoke on the topic COVID and Economic Policy Protecting Jobs, Businesses and the Economy at the forum, which was moderated by journalist Julian Rogers. The other three panelists were Governors Timothy Antoine, of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Richard Byles, of the Bank of Jamaica, and Cleviston Haynes of the Central Bank of Barbados.