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U.S.A in South America                              JAGAN
and this has affected business turnover, estimated in 1966 to be 30 per cent less than the average for 1964 and 1965. 
That the economy is stagnant has been well summed up in the words of a strong government supporter, businessman John Fernandes, when he recently lamented: "economically we are in a bad way and no one seems to care."

Guyana is no model
But Guyana propagandists are busy at home and abroad painting a rosy picture. Recently, the London Daily Telegraph praised the coalition government for achieving an 8 per cent rate of increase in the gross domestic product for 1966, and recommended that its economic planning should be a model for Africa.
Actually the 8 per cent growth rate is largely fictitious. The Bank of Guyana Report for 1966 reduced this to a net figure of 3 per cent after making a deduction of 5 per cent, 2 per cent for the price increases and 3 per cent for population increase. For 1967, the net figure would be zero as the Economic Survey of Guyana (1966) predicts that the growth rate "would probably be in the region of 4 per cent or 5 per cent over 1966."
The high growth rate for 1966 was largely due to increased activity in mining (bauxite) and government outlay on infrastructure - construction of roads, sea defenses, airport, public buildings, harbors and stellings. The productive sectors - manufacturing and agriculture performed poorly. The share of agriculture, including livestock, declined for 22.2 per cent of GDP in 1962, 24 per cent in 1963, 21.4 per cent in 1964 (the worst year of disturbances), 20.5 per cent in 1965, to only 19 per cent in 1966. 
Manufacturing showed slight increase, "although the rate of expansion was slowing down." Consequently, the Bank of Guyana Report, putting it mildly, stated: "Guyana's economic growth rate was thus not as broadly based as might have been desirable." 
As regards the future, bauxite production cannot continue to expand at the same rate as over the last two years.1 Nor can government expenditure on infrastructure be maintained at the present level

[[footnote]]
1 Actually, in early October, the Demerara Bauxite Company, a subsidiary of the Aluminium Company of Canada, informed the Guyana Mine Workers Union that in the "foreseeable future," there would be a 20% cut-back in the production of metal grade bauxite. The Union President claimed that the cut-back would mean a reduction of some 10% of the company's overall production. 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-12 15:48:37