By Ray Chickrie
GEORGETOWN, Guyana – President of Guyana, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, on Tuesday disclosed that the Mexican company, Grupo Industrial Omega, wants to invest in Guyana. Executives of the company on Monday visited the presidential secretariat where they discussed their interest in several investment opportunities in Guyana.
Andres Holzer, Alejandro Garcia and Federico Martinez met with President Ali at his office. The group indicated that their company has investments in different areas, including Dufry, the largest conglomerate of duty frees in the world, construction, and oil and gas.
The office of the president said that prior to meeting the president, the company “indicated via a letter that they were interested in developing the international airports in Guyana and the tourism market. Pointing to Guyana’s “unbelievable areas.”
On Tuesday, the group also met with chief investment officer of Go-Invest, Dr Peter Ramsaroop, where they “ highlighted their interest in several investment opportunities in Guyana.
According to the company website, it was founded in 1982 and started as a contractor in public works and federal highways in Mexico. The company is very involved in the tourism industry like running airports and building hotels and luxury real estate.
“Over the years, we gained the experience to independently create a network of important strategic allies and we successfully developed in different sectors of construction, industrial real estate and services.”
Guyana, which started producing oil in 2019, is the only Caribbean country that recorded positive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2020 according to the World Bank. The country saw a 20 percent growth in 2020 and is expected to achieve a 30 percent growth in 2021.
The country is experiencing unprecedented interest from investors from across the world. Guyana is now looking to appoint residence ambassadors to Abu Dhabi and Doha where embassies will be opened. Some major investments coming from Qatar, the UAE and the AAA rated Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) are in the pipes.
President Irfaan Ali told an investment forum recently, “As such, Guyana welcomes private investment. Investment remains pivotal to shared prosperity. We simply lack the scale of financial, technological and human resources needed for our ambitious economic development plans. We need investment to drive our development.”