April 2, 2022- The Trinidad Connection
A robust debate has been triggered by Guyana’s Local Content Act (the Act) between Guyanese and Trinidad and Tobago business organisations, businesspeople and involving some Guyanese public officials. The debate has had little input from ordinary Guyanese citizens. For example, there has been few, if any, letters in the press from Guyanese expressing outrage against Trinidadians for any reason.
However, while the debate is limited to Trinidad’s business practices, trade policies and importance to Guyana as a Caricom member, there is a strong undercurrent in Guyana of resentment against what is believed to be Trinidad’s historically unflattering view of Guyanese due, it has always been believed, to Trinidad’s sense of its own superiority by virtue of its oil wealth as against Guyana’s relative poverty.
GUYANA: Large-scale oil reserves put Guyana in position to be major player in regional affairs – Opinion
The United States should provide more aid to the countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to avoid an influx of refugees from the region. That warning has come from the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne. The U.S. must “pay more attention to the Caribbean region in helping us to maintain our standard of living to avoid any mass movement of people,” he said. The alternative would be that “they’ll end up on the shores of the United States as refugees,” Browne told the Reuters news agency in a Jan. 25 interview.
Caribbean countries are saddled with debts sometimes equivalent to 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and are having to rely on loans offered on favorable terms by Chinese banks, Browne told Reuters reporter Brian Ellsworth. Such loans have totaled more than $4 billion in the past 10 years, with much of the funds going to infrastructure development, Ellsworth reported, citing figures from the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. Browne said that the Chinese loans are provided on more favorable terms than those from agencies such as the International Monetary Fund but that should not be interpreted as a political statement. Continue reading →
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