Guyana means business.

• Author: Luxner, Larry
• Position: Guyana's economic conditions - Includes related on Guyana's rum industry

MOST DEVELOPING COUNTRIES have to contend with exploding populations and shrinking resources. Guyana has the opposite problem: a huge land area and not enough people to exploit its abundant natural wealth. Guyana's population is around 600,000--fewer people than live in Washington, D.C.--in a country the size of Great Britain. Some 90 percent of its people live along the narrow coastal strip that hugs the Atlantic Ocean, leaving most of this South American nation's resource-rich interior virtually uninhabited.

In January 1991, Guyana was formally admitted into the Organization of American States (OAS). Theyear before, it won a hard-fought entrance into the U.S. Caribbean Basin Initiative--which removes customs duties on most Guyanese exports into the United States. As a one-time British colony, Guyana is already assured duty-free entry into Western Europe through the European Community's Lome Convention, a trade-and-aid program for 69 former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Observers say that for the first time since the late 1970s, this little-known country has a real chance ot exploit its resources and turn around an economy that has been sliding for years.

"Guayana is gaining more and more credibility among the international community. It has respected its debts and is open for investment," said Jean Demers, a mining analyst for Cambior Incorporated of Montreal, Canada. Cambior, along with another Canadian firm, is seeking US$150 million to mine what may be one of the largest gold deposits in South America. Jeffrey Prosser, chairman of Atlantic Tele-Network, which in January officially acquired 80 percent of Guyana's state-owned telephone company agrees: "Five to seven years from now, Guyana will be the most profitable subsidiary we have. We believe the potential is grea." Sentiments such as these are repeated among executives from the United States to the United Kingdom. The Salt Lake City, Utah-based Leucadai Corporation plans to buy controlling interest in the Guyanese electricity network. Similarly, the sugar giant Booker-Tate of Great Britain has won a government contract to manage Guyana's troubled sugar industry.

Nonetheless, the 83,000-square-mile Cooperative Republic of Guyana--wedged between Venezuela, Surnimae and Brazil on South America's northern coast--has more than its share of economic woes. Because of rampant inflation, Guyana's per-capita income is now believed to be under US$350, making it one of the...