Guyana’s Oil-Fueled Boom Defies Regional Debt Trends

Guyana remains one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and a new report shows Georgetown is also managing its debt more effectively even as it borrows heavily for infrastructure.

The Inter-American Development Bank’s latest Caribbean Economics Quarterly found that debt-service costs have fallen from roughly seven cents of every dollar in government revenue before oil production began to about five cents today. That places Guyana as a low-debt outlier in the region, buoyed by strong resource revenues. By contrast, the IDB noted that The Bahamas, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago began 2025 with debt burdens well above 2019 levels.

The labor market has tightened sharply as well. Unemployment fell from 14.5 percent in the third quarter of 2021 to 6.8 percent in the same period of 2024, according to the report. Guyana’s population has also grown, from about 700,000 a decade ago to roughly 900,000 today.

The economy expanded 19.3 percent in 2025, following 43.8 percent growth in 2024. Non-oil growth also accelerated, rising to 15 percent from 13 percent, suggesting oil wealth is spilling over into other sectors.

The IMF projects growth will remain strong through the decade’s end – 16.2 percent in 2026, 19.7 percent in 2027, and 22.1 percent in 2028 – before easing to more sustainable rates of 12.8 percent in 2029, 11.5 percent in 2030, and 1.1 percent in 2031 as oil output stabilizes.