Guyanese companies scale up after government-led financing unlocks over US$260M in private capital
– IDB Invest identifies US300 million in new opportunities in Guyana
Guyanese companies across manufacturing, retail, shipping, hospitality and small businesses are expanding at a pace that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, driven by a deliberate push by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration to attract private financing in the country’s non-oil economy.
The push translated into more than US$260 million in approvals from IDB Invest, the private sector arm of the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) Group, for projects in Guyana since August 2020.
Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, said this represents a more than forty-fold jump from the US$6 million the institution had committed to the country pre-2020.
He revealed this figure on Thursday as he joined President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali to commission the Four Points by Sheraton Georgetown.
“When President Ali assumed the presidency in August 2020 and subsequently appointed me as his Minister of Finance, one of our earliest conversations was about the astronomical rate of growth that he anticipated would take place in the non-oil economy,” Minister Singh recalled.
However, the president’s frank assessment was that Guyana’s domestic banking sector cannot meet the financing needs of a rapidly expanding non-oil private sector.
“President Ali said we need to get regional banks on board to finance projects in Guyana. We need to get international banks, and we need to get the private sector arms of the multi-regional and multilateral financial institutions on board,” Dr Singh told the gathering.
“Prior to August 2020, the cumulative approvals by IDB Invest for projects in Guyana were six million United States dollars, four projects totalling six million,” the minister stated. “Since President Ali assumed the presidency in August 2020, to date, IDB Invest has approved more than 260 million United States dollars for projects in Guyana.”
The story behind that number is the growth of Guyanese companies themselves. For example, Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL), the 1952-founded public company and producer of the internationally recognised El Dorado rum, secured a US$22 million financing package from IDB Invest, US$20 million from its own resources, together with a US$2 million blended-finance loan from the Clean Technology Fund to expand its juice and milk production.
The company was also able to construct a 3.25 megawatt self-consumption solar photovoltaic system with battery storage.
Down at the Port of Georgetown, Muneshwers Limited partnered with IDB Invest and the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry on a US$14 million financing package for two new multipurpose cargo cranes and a logistics warehouse.
In the retail space, Unicomer Guyana Inc., through its real estate arm Redstart Guyana, drew US$25 million in IDB Invest financing for the “River Place” commercial complex and megastore at Farm, East Bank Demerara.
And Guyana’s smallest businesses have also been brought into the frame. In January 2026, the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED), the country’s leading non-bank financial institution, secured a US$5 million loan from IDB Invest to expand access to finance for micro and small enterprises, with a particular focus on women, youth, and rural entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of IDB Invest, James Scriven, who was part of the hotel’s commissioning ceremony, highlighted that his two-day visit to Guyana had already surfaced new investment opportunities exceeding US$300 million.
“Rest assured that we will continue to support your effort to diversify your economy as a development institution,” the IDB Invest CEO told President Ali, pointing to another 60 years of partnership ahead between the IDB Group and Guyana.
For Minister Singh, Guyana’s economic story reflects more than a single sector’s success. He attributed its growth to the enabling environment created by the administration led by President Ali, which he said had actively sought out, rather than waited on, providers of private capital.
“What you’re witnessing today in this eminently bankable project in the tourism and hospitality sector, opportunities like this are replicated in every single sector of the economy of Guyana,” he said.
The vision of the PPP/C Administration is to create a diversified economy, one that can withstand global economic shocks.
