Guyana attracted an average of US$8.3 billion a year in foreign direct investment from 2023 to 2025, as expansion in the oil industry made the country the main driver of investment growth in the Caribbean, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The bank’s Trade and Integration Monitor 2026 shows that annual inflows climbed from an average of US$254 million in 2012-2014 to US$1.05 billion in 2017-2019, before reaching US$8.28 billion in the most recent three-year period.
Across the Caribbean economies covered by the report, annual inflows had hovered around US$2.9 billion in the two earlier periods before rising to US$10.6 billion in 2023-2025. Guyana received just over 78 per cent of that total.
“Guyana explains this jump,” the IDB said, identifying the oil industry as the main driver. Suriname also recorded an increase, though on a smaller scale, while The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Haiti and Jamaica attracted less investment than a decade earlier.
The figures also show how much foreign investment has grown relative to the size of Guyana’s economy. Annual inflows were equivalent to 37.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2023-2025, up from 6.2 per cent in 2012-2014. Over the same comparison periods, the value of foreign direct investment already in the country rose from US$2.55 billion to US$34.25 billion.
