Guyana attracted an average of US$115 million a year in foreign direct investment from the European Union (EU) in 2023 and 2024, a sharp increase from about US$4 million annually a decade earlier, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The bank’s Trade and Integration Monitor 2026 shows that the increase came while EU investment inflows to the Caribbean as a whole remained virtually unchanged at approximately US$4.5 billion a year.
The report compared annual averages for 2013-2014 with those for 2023-2024, using data from Eurostat and the International Monetary Fund.
Beyond the increase in annual inflows, the value of accumulated EU investment in Guyana averaged US$1.65 billion in 2023-2024. This measure, known as investment stock, reflects the value of investment holdings in the country.
Guyana was among the economies helping to expand those holdings across the Caribbean outside its two major financial centres.
“In the Caribbean, excluding the Bahamas and Barbados, the gains were driven by Suriname, Guyana, and Jamaica,” the IDB stated.
Across the remaining Caribbean economies, accumulated EU investment more than doubled between the two comparison periods, rising from US$3.27 billion to US$8.14 billion.
The wider Caribbean total, however, fell by 22 per cent, largely because of declining investment holdings in The Bahamas.
Guyana’s increase in European investment formed part of a broader surge in foreign capital entering the country. The same report found that foreign direct investment from all sources averaged US$8.28 billion annually from 2023 to 2025, with the oil industry driving the expansion.
The EU figures provide a separate picture of investment from the bloc, covering the two-year period ending in 2024.
