CONSUMER spending power in Guyana has increased significantly, with statics showing consumption expenditure rose from $71 billion in 2015 to $1.465 trillion in 2024, reflecting a rate of increase of 20.6 times, representing 8.1 per cent of the GDP in 2015 and 26 per cent of GDP in 2024.
This was according to Joel Bhagwandin, a local financial analyst, who also highlighted that over the same period, individual savings in the banking sector increased from $194 billion in 2015 to $428 billion in 2024.
“What this means is that since 2015, although individual savings have doubled in the banking sector, consumption expenditure at the household level has increased by more than twenty-fold over the last nine years or so, which is indicative of greater spending power, rising income levels, and higher spending on consumption in the economy,” Bhagwandin said in a post on his Facebook page.
He credited this to the Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government’s ‘pro-poor’ policies.
Just recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) praised the government’s social transfer policies that have resulted in increased disposable income and a reduction in Guyana’s poverty rate.
Since assuming office in 2020, the PPP/C Government has invested heavily in the social welfare of Guyanese, while also building out the country’s infrastructural landscape to enable long-term growth and sustained development.
“Staff assesses that social transfer policies implemented in recent years have increased disposable income and reduced the poverty rate,” the IMF’s 2025 Article IV Mission noted in its concluding statement which was released Friday last.
Among the plethora of measures are the re-introduction and increase of the education grant to $55,000 per child; the increase in old-age pension to $41,000; increase in public assistance; targeted cash transfers, including the ongoing $100,000 cash grant initiative, and the grant for persons living with disabilities; health vouchers and programmes; and the removal and reduction of taxes, along with other targeted tax-deduction measures.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali, while previously referencing the investments geared at enhancing the lives of all Guyanese, had said: “This is how the resources and revenues of this country is being spent every single day; to uplift the lives of people, to expand national wealth, to expand personal wealth, to expand community wealth. This is what the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic government is all about.”
These measures, he noted, are real policies and actions taken by the government to bring relief to citizens.
“We don’t demonstrate our love and commitment to people by noise; we demonstrate our love and commitment to people by real action; real policy, real intervention,” he added.