Guyana's future

Guyana gears up for growth

As Georgetown prepares to host the CSA Annual General Meeting for the first time, Guyana’s oil-backed economic transformation is driving unprecedented investment in ports, terminals and logistics infrastructure.

When delegates gather in Georgetown for the Caribbean Shipping Association’s Annual General Meeting in late October it will be the first time Guyana’s capital city has hosted the event in its 55-year history.

Guyana has previously hosted the slightly smaller but no less important Caribbean Shipping Executives Conference (CSEC), but organizing the well-attended CSA AGM is clearly a landmark achievement for the Shipping Association of Guyana (SAG).

Up until comparatively recently, Guyana lacked the necessary infrastructure of good air links and top-quality hotels to accommodate delegates and provide the high-level conference facilities for over 400 attendees.

But this is a new and ambitious Guyana; no longer just an English-speaking nation in South America and one struggling economically and in need of major inward investment. On the contrary, this is a country adjusting to the in-flow of oil revenues – forecast this year to be around US$ 6.5 billion.

Exploitation
The discovery of commercial oil reserves in 2015 and the subsequent exploitation of these reserves largely by energy giants EXXON, Chevron Corporation and CNOOC Petroleumn has seen Guyana transformed. And today, Guyana is regularly judged to enjoy the world’s fastest growing economy – albeit from a low base. Growth was 19.3% in 2025 and, based on half-year figures, could be as high as 30% this year and is being felt throughout the country.

After just two years away, this is how a shocked returning Guyanese described Georgetown: “The hustle. The traffic. The construction. The new businesses. The pace of development. The sheer amount of movement happening everywhere.”

This remarkable economic growth has quickly and inevitably resulted in a massive construction boom and to much-needed upgrading of the nation’s port facilities – not only readied to serve the offshore oil sector, but also to handle the dramatic upturn in imports.

Georgetown has traditionally operated a somewhat diversified port/terminal sector different in many ways to many others in the region with the cargo mostly handled by privately held stevedoring firms with their own dedicated terminals. This has worked well and looks set to continue only with a greater number of such operators now on both sides of the Demerara River. Nevertheless, the outside pressure to more closely co-ordinate port capacity may seem an obvious step in the present circumstances, but as one experienced local shipping agent explains: “We need effective coordination as traffic grows, but I do not believe that necessarily requires bringing the facilities under a single operator. Adding: “A more centralised arrangement might reduce some duplication, but I would want to understand whether it would improve service or add another administrative layer. My preference would be to preserve the flexibility and responsiveness of the existing operators, while strengthening coordination wherever shared needs arise.” Nevertheless, the government is said to legislating to create such a port authority. New privately held terminal operators and offshore basses such as Friendship Port, Tristar Port of Guyana, GAICO Port and to some extent the US$260 million Vreed en Hoop Port have all provided much-need additional capacity. These compliment five long -established terminal operators such as John Fernandes, Muneshwers – the two share some cargo handling equipment, Guyana National Shipping Corp, Demerara Shipping Co and Guyana National Industrial Co.

Family owned
The Persaud family-owned Tristar Port is a US$ 250 million eight-berth scheme located on 251,000 square meters handling container, energy, ro-ro and breakbulk cargoes.

Tristar Friendship Port Facility is a multipurpose-built port terminal, designed to support the evolving needs of Guyana’s maritime, oil and gas, logistics, and industrial sectors.Targeted at the offshore industry, the US$260 million Vreed-en-Hoop Shorebase (VEHSI) is situated on the West Bank of the Demerara River.

But beyond the Demerara River, Guyana is now thinking big. Plans for new ports continue to be discussed. The biggest proposed project is the construction of the Berbice deepwater port. US Engineering company Bechtel is conducting studies on the port. The Government is assessing both the technical requirements and potential financial arrangements with Qatar before making a final decision on how and when the project should proceed. Discussions between Guyana and Bechtel on major infrastructure projects date back several years (see CM issue 42).

Abundance
Despite the abundance of good news, the local shipping sector faces challenges and is looking to the government to address them, with a view to improving port efficiency and strengthening the overall competitiveness of Guyana’s shipping sector. The SAG wants to ensure that Guyana’s shipping and trade systems continue to keep pace with the country’s rapid economic growth. A strong and efficient shipping sector is critical to supporting trade, reducing delays and ensuring that Guyana’s development is supported by an increasingly efficient logistics network,” the Association says.

As the Association acknowledges, matching port and the local logistics capacity with an anticipated increase in freight volumes is a difficult one. Newly oil-rich Nigeria failed to do so in the 1970s; leading to delays of up to over 180 days and, consequently, massive demurrage payouts. By contrast and at the same time Dubai went ahead and built a new 35-berth port that today is only used by cruise ships with commercial cargo handling operations long since moved away to Jebel Ali. The SAG is rightly playing its part to ensure that Guyana gets these decisions right.

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