The Guyana economy was the least affected among Caribbean and Latin American countries by the ravages of the debilitating COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recently released World Bank semi-annual report on the region.
Guyana’s economy grew by 72.03 per cent between 2019 and 2021, leaving behind the largely tourism-dependent island nations as well as continental countries in South America. While twelve other countries in the hemisphere also recorded positive growth, those were decidedly modest compared to Guyana’s impressive double digit growth figures. Nicaragua, the country in the hemisphere with the second-highest cumulative growth rate, grew at about 7.53 per cent. The other ten “expanding economies” named in the report are Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Paraguay and Peru.