PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/221

31 October 2003

TRADE POLICY REVIEW: GUYANA

Diversification of production and export base will be best achieved by strengthening economic reform and trade liberalization

The WTO report, along with a policy statement by the Government of Guyana , will be the basis for the first Trade Policy Review (TPR) of Guyana by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 29 and 31 October 2003.

Guyana has taken important steps to liberalize its trade and investment regimes in the last 15 years, enhancing its integration into the global economy, but needs to make further efforts to increase its competitiveness while also seeking to diversify its production and export base to face a possible further erosion of trade preferences, according to a report on the trade policies and practices of Guyana released 31 of October by the WTO Secretariat.

The report says that Guyana’s economy, now dependent to a great extent on a few natural resources, such as sugar, gold, bauxite and rice, has been growing at a very slow pace in recent years despite the reform efforts undertaken. Market access has in general been enhanced under the process of progressive liberalization in CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market) but the process of integrating the WTO agreements into domestic legislation has not been fully completed.

The report adds that preferential access to the markets of the European Union and the United States is important to Guyana for exports of its traditional products but the country has been affected in recent years by a deterioration of its terms of trade, compounded by an erosion of preferential margins. For these reasons, diversification of the economy is generally seen in Guyana as an imperative, says the report. This can be best achieved by continuing and strengthening the process of economic reform and trade liberalization underway.

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The following documents are available in MS Word format.

Secretariat report

> Contents and summary observations (11 pages, 160KB)

> Economic environment (15 pages, 337KB)

> Trade policy regime: framework and objectives (16 pages, 191KB)

> Trade policies and practices by measure (31 pages, 422KB)

> Trade policies by sector (40 pages, 342KB)

> Appendix tables (6 pages, 173KB)

Government report (9 pages, 55KB)

Chairperson's concluding remarks

Minutes of the meeting are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.

Note back to top

Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member countries’ trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant developments that may have an impact on the global trading system are also monitored. For each review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents are then discussed by the WTO’s full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRB’s meetings are published shortly afterwards.

Print copies of previous TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Genève 21 and through the on-line bookshop.

The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States.

Schedule of forthcoming reviews back to top

Haiti: 4, 6 November 2003

Thailand: 12, 14 November 2003

Chile: 2, 4 December 2003