I refer to an article in the Kaieteur News edition of May 13, 2025, with the title “non-oil exports in 2024 barely reached US$1.8 billion: as Gov’t claims non-oil economy can support excessive borrowing”.
The article concludes:
“The Opposition contends that the debt-to-GDP formula is a smokescreen and does not depict the gravity of the administration’s borrowing trend. Low highlighted that since Guyana’s GDP has significantly increased, the ratio reflects a reduced debt. This however does not mean that the country’s total stock of debt has declined; contrarily, Guyana’s public debt has grown substantially. The Opposition Economist explained, “Because the country has grown so quickly, the debt to GDP number has fallen sharply so even if you take on a huge amount of debt you would still have a low debt to GDP ratio. This is misleading however because we must bear in mind that a growth in Guyana’s GDP is not the same as growth in government revenue.”
The analysis presented in the abovementioned article is at best mediocre and incomplete.
The non-oil export value is not an indicator of the full debt service capacity of the non-oil economy. As shown in the table 1 below, in 2024, non-oil exports accounted for 21%, less than a third of non-oil GDP.
Further, it would be interesting to note the following additional indicators pointing to the resilience and debt service capacity of the non-oil economy:
- Non-oil GDP has grown cumulatively since 2020 by 86.8%, up from $960 billion in 2020 to $1.8 trillion in 2024.
- Non-oil revenue has risen cumulatively since 2020 by 92.5%, up from $218.3 billion in 2020 to $420 billion in 2024.
- Non-oil exports have grown by 18% since 2020, up from $318 billion in 2020 to $375 billion in 2024.
- Total debt service has risen at a lower rate over the period under review than non-oil revenue, by 33%, up from $11.6 billion in 2020 to $15.5 billion in 2024.
- And more importantly, only 4% of non-oil revenue is used to service total debt repayment, thus solidifying the argument that the non-oil economy is capable of comfortably servicing the stock of public debt.
Although this is not a comprehensive debt sustainability analysis, this author has in the past conducted a series of more comprehensive debt sustainability analysis that shows Guyana’s debt sustainability indicators are considered low risk. The economy’s debt service capacity has grown considerably over the years, particularly on account of the strategic investments aimed at diversifying the non-oil sectors.