TRINIDAD and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, has a lot he should be thankful to Guyana for, rather than making disdainful remarks about Guyana.

I also saw from one of my Trinidadian friends that a minority leader of a political party posted on his Facebook page that Guyana’s Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, called a news conference to respond to Prime Minister Rowley’s inappropriate remarks. This is not true.

The Vice President did not address Prime Minister Rowley in his news conference; it was after his news conference and during the question-and-answer segment when a journalist posed the question about foreign exchange shortage, where he said what he said as a ‘by the way’ comment.

But let me take this opportunity to highlight a few things in regard to why Prime Minister Rowley should be thankful to Guyana; because it is not the first time he has made remarks about Guyana in a mocking way.

Trinidad and Tobago is Guyana’s largest trading partner for imports, whereby Trinidad enjoys a handsome trade surplus with Guyana. In 2022, Guyana’s import bill with Trinidad amounted to over US$1 billion, accounting for 25 per cent of Guyana’s total imports.

On the other hand, Guyana’s exports to Trinidad are virtually negligible, less than five per cent of total non-oil exports, giving rise to a trade surplus with Guyana in the region of US$900 million.

Additionally, there are two large Trinidadian conglomerates operating in Guyana, namely: Massy and the ANSA McAL Group of Companies; and one financial institution, Republic Bank Ltd. In 2022, these three companies racked up an estimated after-tax profit in the region of US$185 million from their operations in Guyana.

There are many other Trinidadian companies operating in Guyana’s oil and gas sector as well, and some are in partnerships with Guyanese firms. So, looking at our balance-of-payment accounts, reasonable estimates can be derived in terms of repatriation of profit to Trinidad.

Considering all of the above, altogether the Trinidad economy earns anything over US$1.3 billion attributed to Guyana’s economy. This amount represents nearly six per cent of T&T’s 2022 GDP, 17 per cent of T&T’s current revenue, and 91 per cent of T&T’s total debt service figure for 2022. Thus, Guyana’s contribution to the T&T’s economy (from trade and profits from T&T companies in Guyana) is sufficient to cover more than 90 per cent of T&T’s debt service payments.

In just seven years, US$4.6 billion of T&T’s economy was wiped out under Prime Minister Rowley, from US$27 billion in 2015 down to US$22 billion in 2022; another US$3.1 billion in T&T’s foreign reserve disappeared, from US$9.9 billion in 2015, the equivalent of 12.2 months import cover, down to US$6.8 billion, the equivalent of 8.6 months import cover in 2022.

As for the total debt stock, 90 per cent of GDP and climbing, up from 68 per cent in 2015. To put this into perspective, Guyana’s pre-oil GDP was US$4 billion.

Effectively, the T&T economy shrank by an amount that is larger than the size of Guyana’s pre-oil GDP. Meanwhile, the Guyanese economy is projected to surpass T&T’s economy by 2025. For instance, based on projected growth for 2023, real GDP is forecast to more than quadruple from pre-oil levels, to US$17 billion.

While the Guyanese dollar is weaker to the US dollar relative to the T&T currency to the US dollar, the Guyanese exchange rate has been stable over the last 15 years within the framework of a floating exchange rate system.

In the case of Guyana, exchange rate stability is important at this time versus a revaluation of the exchange rate for a stronger currency. Conversely, Trinidad and Tobago has a fixed exchange rate regime which means that to maintain a certain exchange rate, the Central Bank has to maintain an established minimum level of foreign exchange reserves.

As mentioned above, the foreign exchange reserves were equivalent to more than one year’s worth of import cover, which has weakened consistently to 8.6 months import cover in 2022. This means that if the T&T economy continues to dwindle at the current rate, by 2025 the T&T economy will be in trouble-that is, a brewing debt and foreign exchange crisis.

In addition, to date Guyana has a long list of unresolved trade barriers with Trinidad and Tobago, to the extent that Guyanese firms are prevented from exporting their commodities into T&T. Even approved items are denied entry, and T&T seems to have no interest in resolving these issues, though some of them, if not all of them, are in violation of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.

Be that as it may, I wish to acknowledge that over three decades ago Trinidad and Tobago, under former prime minister Basdeo Panday, was very generous to Guyana when Guyana had its own debt crisis. To this end, Guyana benefited from debt forgiveness from T&T which, in part, helped Guyana to recover during that period.

Finally, Guyana has always been generous to Trinidad and Tobago, and there was a time when Trinidad was more generous to Guyana. Guyana welcomes the many Trinidadian firms in Guyana, our Guyanese counterparts have many fruitful and gainful partnerships with our Trinidadian counterparts. Going forward, I would like to see more mutual respect for each other, especially from the level of the current T&T Government. And to the rest of our T&T counterparts, some of them, drop the arrogance, it won’t get us anywhere.

Joel Bhagwandin
Guyana