Guyana’s services sector advancement to be discussed at upcoming Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit

Developments in Guyana’s services sector, in the areas of tourism, environmental, information technology, and others, will shape critical dialogue in the upcoming Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit slated for July 23 to 25 at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre in Georgetown.

This is according to Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who was at the time responding to a question posed by a reporter during his weekly press briefing on Thursday.

Pointing to key components of the post-oil and gas economy, Dr Jagdeo noted advancements in the sectors which are directly linked to Guyana’s biodiversity.

“So we are now looking at the services sector. Services will provide a major growth pool for our economy. We are going to have twelve international hotels,” he boasted.

“We are moving now to incentivise the large eco-lodges in the interior, because now we have some small lodges, but you can’t really get eco-tourism going. In terms of assets for eco-tourism, we have some of the best assets in the world. We have more bird species than the whole United States of America. We have huge biodiversity hotspots. We have eighty six per cent of virgin forests. You’re going to hear about these at the Biodiversity Summit which is coming up next week,” Dr Jagdeo noted, while describing these as huge growth poles for the future.

He also pointed to major advancements in Guyana’s agriculture sector, noting developments in the import and export industries, as well as aquaculture.

“Second, is agriculture. Agriculture, both from an export industry… the hubs to process food—like Lethem, and then then an airport there to fly. You have a lot of freight cargo aircraft coming in to fly food out. So both from an export perspective and a replacement of export dimension. That will be another major growth pole for the industry,” Dr Jagdeo said.

“With aqua culture alone we can build a one billion dollar US industry per year,” he added.

He also spoke about connections, as well as trade and export links with Brazil.

“The third has to do with the connection with Brazil I’m talking about. Because once we have that deep water port, northern Brazil will have to use Guyana for their exports, and also a lot of imports into northern Brazil. The logistics, the warehousing, all of these things, the trucking services–major new growth pole for our companies and Guyanese people,” he said.

Dr Jagdeo added that there will be new developments with regards to information technology in the form of data centres when there is cheaper energy.

“So they’re several new growth poles that we’re working on at this stage, and big investments will flow into these areas to make sure that they grow rapidly,” he stated.