The World Trade Centre hosted its Global Growth and Commerce Summit on Thursday at its Kingston headquarters in Georgetown, bringing together international and local business leaders, investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers to discuss trade, innovation and the next phase of Guyana's economic expansion.

The gathering reflected a country still working out how to talk about its own transformation. Guyana's oil sector has driven years of double digit growth, but speakers at the summit returned repeatedly to a single theme: the conversation abroad has not kept pace with the reality on the ground.

Beyond the oil boom

Rosalinda Rasul, Head of the Diaspora Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, delivered the keynote address. Her message centred on building genuine strategic partnerships rather than leaning on the broad economic narratives that tend to circulate in international media.

Rasul took particular issue with shorthand descriptions of Guyana that have gained currency overseas, among them "Little Dubai" and "oil economy." These labels, she argued, flatten a more complicated picture and set expectations that do not match how business actually gets done in the country. Investors arriving with assumptions shaped by such phrases, she said, often find themselves unprepared for the actual terrain, whether that concerns regulatory processes, infrastructure timelines or the pace at which deals move from discussion to signature.

Her point was not that the oil sector lacks importance. It remains the engine behind much of the activity now visible in Georgetown. But treating it as the whole story, she suggested, obscures the parts of the economy that are growing for entirely different reasons.

Sectoral expansion and skill gaps

Rasul pointed to artificial intelligence and supply chain management as two areas where Guyana is seeing activity well outside the petroleum sector. These are not industries that emerged because of oil revenue directly, but ones drawn by the broader conditions the oil boom has created, including rising demand for logistics capacity and digital infrastructure.

Sustaining that growth, she said, depends on three things arriving together: credible investors willing to commit for the medium term, ideas with genuine commercial substance behind them, and people with the specialised skills to execute on them. Guyana's small population and limited training infrastructure mean the talent question is not abstract. Without it, she suggested, even well capitalised projects in these newer sectors risk stalling.

Overcoming barriers to investment

A recurring theme in Rasul's remarks was what she described as an information gap facing prospective investors. Too many decisions, she said, are still being made on the basis of generalised country level data rather than verified, current insight from people actually operating inside Guyana's markets. The Diaspora Unit has identified this gap as one of the principal stumbling blocks slowing the pace of new investment, more significant in her telling than questions of capital availability or political risk.

Part of the issue, she noted, lies in who investors are speaking to in the first place. Conversations that stay at the level of trade missions and embassy briefings rarely surface the operational detail that determines whether a venture succeeds. That detail tends to sit with people already working in the sector in question, whether diaspora professionals, local operators or specialists who have moved through Guyana's regulatory processes before.

Rasul's closing argument was that the summit itself should be judged by what follows it. The aim, she said, is to move discussions away from abstract pitches and general statements of interest towards binding contracts, and that requires the right people in the room rather than simply more people. Matching specific investors with the specific local partners who understand a given sector, she argued, does more to advance a deal than any amount of broad promotional messaging.

The summit closed without formal commitments announced from the floor, though organisers said several bilateral meetings had been scheduled to continue in the weeks ahead.

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