By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
February 18, 2022
Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali is marketing the Amazon rainforest as a lucrative place to do business. His comments on the value of the rainforest came as he addressed top oil and gas executives as the country hosted the International Energy Conference and Expo this week.
Given the recent boom in oil and gas reserves in the South American country, Ali says the country can finally afford to promote the diversification it has always dreamed of “with hard work and humility, we have the ability to make that giant leap for Guyana and all of humanity.”
He says this kind of diversifying the economy through biodiversity while keeping climate change in mind so that the country can be resilient while remaining eco-sustainable. Giving a clearer picture of what the country’s forestry sector is worth, Ali put an estimated value of US five hundred billion dollars, with a deforestation rate of less than zero point zero five per cent. He added that currently there was 18.3 million hectares of standing forest, which covers about 87 per cent of its land area which stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon worth about US$195 billion, while it could sustainably harvest one million cubic metres per year. President Ali says at present 400,000 cubic metres is harvested and valued at US$80 million a year.
He added that the forest contains four per cent of all known plant species in the world and three per cent of all known animal species and the sector presented opportunities for large scale downstream processing, prefab housing, prime value-added species for niche markets, partnering with environmental services. He maintained that “reforestation programmes and forest plantation, all linked to new emerging and potential markets”.
And while Guyana has been long known for its mining properties, Ali says gold reserves continue to hold great potential for the country with an estimated value of US$35M, while its Bauxite reserves of 340M tonnes carried a value of US$1B.
However, much of focus was placed on Guyana’s natural characteristics, he said held a potency for investors for tackling global food security, as agriculture posed a great deal of opportunities for investment. Ali listed Guyana’s fresh water capacity, growing potential, production facilities with markets in the US, Mexico, the EU and within CARICOM, with a comparative advantage of 2.5 times higher than any other South American nation, with enough acreage of arable land for poultry, cattle and other livestock produce.
Ali says his government has prioritized its move toward renewable and clean energy, from solar, hydro, wind power, as it needed to reduce its energy prices in order for its private sector to grow. Last month, Guyana joined in launching a solar powered CARICOM headquarters in Georgetown along with Japan’s ambassador to the region.
Overall, he says the government’s development trajectory, with focus on fuel production looks at bringing resilience to not only its people, but the region as a whole through education.
He told investors not to second guess Guyana, and offered what he described as an open door policy, to the wealth and capital it had to offer.
With the recent Natural Resource Fund legislation passed, Ali says it offers transparent governance making it a criminal offence for failure to disclose finances arising from the oil and gas sector within a three-month period by its Finance Minister, punishable by law and imprisonment.