Guyana, US to hold technical talks on bauxite, other investment opportunities

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 May 2026, 17:28 by Denis Chabrol

Guyana and the United States (US) are now poised to hold talks on investments in bauxite, infrastructure and technologies that can include companies from Silicon Valley, US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said Wednesday.

“Now we’re going to have technical conversations following today’s meeting. We may explore the establishment of a working group to ensure a certain level of cadence and follow through,” he said.

Buoyed by talks with President Irfaan Ali, Mr Helberg also told a news briefing at the US Embassy shortly before ending his one-day visit to Guyana, that the US was keen on pushing more investments in the bauxite sector. “We did talk about things that were prospective, but obviously because the reserves of bauxite are known and there are already investments today, we talked a fair amount about those,” he said.  The Chinese bauxite company, BOSAI Minerals, and the American-owned First Bauxite are producing bauxite in Guyana, and RUSAL is expected to resume operations here later this year after walking away in 2018 at the height of a labour dispute.

The US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs said the US was keen on expanding Guyana’s economic activities in the bauxite sector with additional private investment. He explained that that could take the form of infrastructure, especially in roads, and potentially autonomous trucking technology, that “can actually be catalytic to get more Guyanese bauxite on the global market.”

Against the backdrop of the American private sector having US$55 trillion of floating assets- the “single biggest pool of investment that will be most beneficial to Guyana as well as to the US,” he said there are also investment opportunities in data centres, tourism, agriculture technology food technology and other technologies. In that regard, Mr Helberg said there was scope for Guyana and Silicon Valley, the global high-tech hardware and software hub, to bring new technologies to this South American country. “We think that there is a lot of room that can be explored to actually materialise those opportunities and make Guyana potentially an incredible place for Silicon Valley companies to come test new technologies and potentially set up shop here,” he said. Mr Helberg added that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be used to  help establish Guyana as a major logistical hub to facilitate northern Brazil’s shorter duration access to Caribbean markets.

The US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs praised President Ali’s posture towards Guyana’s economic development. “I can confidently say after this trip that President Ali does bring a level of decisiveness that really avails an opportunity to be transformative for the country of Guyana,” he said.