Guyana and the Wider World

Introduction I ended last Sunday’s column with a brief description of the government’s case, which portrays Guyana as a small poor dependent economy confronted with a very difficult international environment yet willing to exchange the global environmental services provided by its pristine forests for compensatory payments through a global exchange mechanism. 

Weak and volatile Several analysts have directly blamed the absence of a coherent economic strategy to guide Guyana’s development since the PPP/C administration came to power in 1992, for the volatile and inadequate economic growth which has prevailed since.

Statistical deception Last week I examined one of two recent instances of what I described as official misuse and abuse of Guyana’s economic statistics.

Reputation Among economists, econometricians and statisticians who conduct serious research on the Caribbean and expend considerable effort mining the region’s economic datasets, Guyana has held the unsavory reputation for decades now, of being the country where political manipulation and Government misuse of official statistics are carried to their worst extreme.

Diversification in and out of Sugar This week I finish my examination of the sugar industry that I had started 20 weeks ago (May, 29, 2011). 

Introduction The process of consolidating and centralizing capital and other productive assets in Guyana’s sugar industry reached its apogee with the establishment of GuySuCo in 1976. 

In last Sunday’s column I sought to portray what I termed as the fundamental economic illogic or contradiction which underlines GuySuCo operations. 

While, as the saying goes, there is very little to be gained from crying over spilt milk, the fact of the matter is that the large income transfers made by the EU to Guyana (averaging over 8 per cent of Guyana’s GDP at its peak in the 1990s) when the Sugar Protocol was in force until 2006, have left few positive economic legacies. 

Shifting the goalpost In most cases of deliberate political and intellectual deception or expediency, persons and organisations would, as the saying goes, seek to shift the goalpost during the debate, in order to defeat the opposing point of view. 

Introduction In an effort to encourage ACP countries to embrace the Sugar Protocol (SP) in the mid-1970s, European officials were at pains to stress that, when fixing the annual price for sugar, account would be taken to ensure a “reasonable rate of return for a reasonably efficient sugar enterprise, over the long run.” 

Introduction The gravamen of last week’s discussion of the technological developments pursued by Booker Tate and GuySuCo in the area of cane cultivation is that these were expected to proceed hand-in-hand with technological improvements in the factories. 

Last week’s column carried a schedule listing the key specifications for the new Skeldon factory.

Introduction The columns I have written so far on the sugar industry, starting on May 29, 2011 are intended to conclude with a broad appraisal of its prospects and suggestions for the way forward. 

As planned, last week I completed the examination of GuySuCo’s key performance indicators.

Necessary questions Today’s column begins with my response to two questions, which several readers have raised with me, privately.

Introduction In last week’s column I had presented time series information pertaining to GuySuCo’s factory performance for the two decades of the 1990s and 2000s.

In last week’s column I continued the discussion of GuySuCo’s performance indicators and also dealt with several other items related to the pattern of yields of sugar cane on GuySuCo’s estates. 

In last week’s column I had indicated that GuySuCo’s Report for 2009 stated that there was no payment of dividends for that year, as in many previous years.

Introduction In last week’s column on the sugar industry I had ended with the presentation of a table on GuySuCo’s expenditure on two key items, namely, “employment costs” and “materials and services” for the years, 1990, 1995 and the decade of the 2000s.

Introduction In last week’s column I had indicated that Guyana’s sugar production, similar to the situation in the rest of Caricom, has been so high cost that it could not survive commercially without the special external marketing arrangements which the region had negotiated under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement (CSA) and its successor the European Commission – African, Caribbean, Pacific (EC-ACP) Sugar Protocol.