Trade and Economic Development: Policy and Trends for Guyana

This chapter explores Guyana’s experience with foreign trade and the impact trade has had on the country’s economic development. It seeks to answer the following questions. How involved is Guyana in international? What factors drive Guyana’s trade? What are the benefits and challenges to Guyana of trading with the rest of the world? What are the strategic opportunities for improving trade? In evaluating the drivers of Guyana’s trade, the chapter considers Guyana’s trade policy framework, as reflected by its trade agreements and participation in the multilateral rules-based system of the WTO. However, it also applies the gravity model for an empirical determination of those policy factors driving trade. The evaluation of the challenges and benefits of trade is done broadly from the perspective of developing countries in the multilateral trading system with application of empirical data to Guyana where available. The chapter concludes by evaluating the strategic opportunities for Guyana’s trade and in this regard, discusses services, digital technologies, and the impact the oil and gas sector may have for shifting the export structure of the country and generally improving the country’s trade performance under its trade agreements.