Business

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Tuesday November 27, 2018 – Republic Financial Holdings Limited (RFHL) on Tuesday announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Scotiabank’s banking operations in Guyana and several other Caribbean countries. The other Scotiabank operations in the takeover are in St. Maarten and the Eastern Caribbean territories, including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and ...

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday assailed government’s 2019 National Budget moments after Finance Minister, Winston Jordan delivered a GYD$300 billion package of revenues and expenditures. ‘We can’t support this budget, not in its current form,” Jagdeo said, adding that the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had expected government to take into consideration its concerns and the pending no-confidence motion. ...

Cigarette smoking in Guyana will next year cost cost more as Finance Minister, Winston Jordan announced on Monday a raft of taxes on the tobacco product. He told the 65-seat National Assembly, in presenting the 2019 National Budget, that the “new regime for taxing tobacco” would include a specific Excise Tax of GYD$$2,500 per 1,000 sticks, together with Customs Duty of ...

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan on Monday announced increases in the thresholds of property tax returns for individuals and companies as part of an ongoing tax reform plan. The 2019 budget is GYD$300.7 billion, 12.6 percent increase over 2018. Real Gross Domestic Product in 2018 is projected to be 4.6 percent compared to an expected 3.4 percent for this year. Inflation ...

Guyana is preparing for domestic negotiations among several stakeholders to address several aspects of forestry governance before licences are issued, now that a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union has been signed, authorities said. The VPA seeks to improve the application of forest laws, strengthen forest governance and promote trade in legal wood products. Representatives of Guyana and ...

The American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) Guyana and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA-Caribbean) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding to equip Guyanese with the right set of skills for the emerging oil and gas sector, officials said. The two-year agreement, which was signed by AMCHAM Guyana President, Zulfikar Ally and Head of ACCA Caribbean, Shelly Ann Mohammed. ...

Guyana is being urged to conduct high-tech integrated mapping to locate and value existing and new mineral resources for effective planning and future investment, a senior official of a geospatial survey company says. “One of our objectives in providing the tools to allow informed governance is to give a picture of the resource wealth of the nation. We can identify ...

A cargo boat sank early Sunday morning off the coast off North Western Guyana as it was taking ‘goods’ from Georgetown to Mabaruma and Port Kaituma, sources said. Officials identified the boat as MV Shivita Two and owned by T. Ballack  of Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara. The captain and all crew members were accounted for, but evidently the cargo has been ...

The newly-elected Councillors of Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, on Friday appeared set to be saddled with some garbage and a GYD$160 million debt to two waste collection companies. Acting Town Clerk, Sharon Harry-Munroe told reporters the City’s treasury is broke and could not pay Cevon’s Waste Management Inc. and Puran Brothers Disposal Inc. She said now that Cevon’s and Purans have ...

Guyana and Ghana on Friday signed a bilateral air services agreement that could pave the way for direct flights between Africa and South America once the two countries make the routes  sufficiently attractive for low-cost airlines to get passengers. If direct flights begin between the two continents, the journey would be reduced to eight hours from almost 38 hours via the ...