From a young nation with a gross domestic product (GDP) of just $229 million to one of the world’s fastest-growing economies worth more than US$75 billion, Guyana’s 60-year journey since Independence has been defined by resilience, sacrifice, and transformation.
President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali made this assertion on Monday evening as he addressed thousands of Guyanese and overseas visitors during the flag-raising ceremony for Guyana’s 60th Independence Anniversary at Fort Island along the Essequibo River.
President Ali said Guyana was a fractured nation in 1966, shaped by colonial division, facing a territorial challenge from Venezuela before independence had barely taken hold. Many predicted it would not survive, but it did.
“We are today, the fastest growing economy on earth,” he declared. “Not in this hemisphere, not in the Caribbean – but on an entire planet. And we did that together as One People, One Nation, One Destiny. We did that as One Guyana.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has confirmed that Guyana led the world with an average real GDP growth of 47 per cent per year between 2022 and 2024, with the country recording double-digit growth for six consecutive years.
Oil production from the offshore Stabroek Block now surpasses 915,000 barrels per day, making Guyana South America’s third-largest oil producer. And for the first time in Guyana’s history, the national budget crossed one trillion Guyanese dollars in 2024.
Per capita income, once recorded at around $340, is projected to approach $38,000 by 2028. While these numbers say a lot, President Ali drew a clear line between what those figures represent on paper and what transformation actually looks like for the Guyanese people.
He pointed to roads and bridges as the clearest evidence. Between 2020 and 2025, more than 10,000 roads and 430 bridges were reconstructed and rehabilitated across the country, reaching communities that independence itself had left behind.
A landmark US$100 million STEM initiative, developed in partnership with ExxonMobil and anchored at the University of Guyana, was also cited as part of the foundation being laid for the next generation.
President Ali also pointed to Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF) as evidence that the country is managing its oil wealth with future generations in mind. The oil beneath Guyana’s waters, he told the gathering, is not the property of any government.
“It is a patrimony of our people. It belongs to every Guyanese who came before us, and to every Guyanese yet to be born,” the president said.
The president also charged the young people of Guyana, stating that they are not responsible for the divisions of the past but are fully responsible for the unity of the future.
He said,“You are the generation that will fully, and irreversibly make Guyana whole.”6589