The World Bank has identified Guyana as the strongest performer in the Caribbean in its October 2026 Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Update. The report attributes the country's growth to the expansion of offshore oil production.

The Bank singles Guyana out from the rest of the region, pointing to a run of unusually fast and steady economic growth that has continued since 2020. It puts real GDP growth at 33.8 per cent in 2023 and 43.8 per cent in 2024. The Bank estimates growth of 19.3 per cent for 2025 and projects 23.7 per cent for 2026. The 2025 figure is an estimate and the 2026 figure a projection, so neither is yet a final outturn.

These rates are well above those of any other Caribbean economy covered in the report. The Bank says Guyana's oil-driven expansion continues to raise the averages for the subregion as a whole.

The report also describes the country's fiscal and external position. It says growth has been accompanied by rising fiscal revenues, improved external balances and a falling ratio of public debt to GDP. This is the Bank's own assessment, and the report as quoted gives no figures for revenue, external balances or debt levels.

The Bank sets Guyana against a different picture elsewhere in the region. It says the Caribbean is moving at two speeds. Guyana and Suriname are growing on the back of oil. The island economies are recovering from the pandemic more slowly. Many of those economies depend on tourism and are still dealing with high energy and transport costs. The report does not, in the passages available, give growth figures for individual island economies.

For the years ahead, the Bank projects growth of 18.7 per cent in 2027 and 15.3 per cent in 2028. On those figures Guyana would remain among the fastest-growing economies in the world, though the comparison with other countries is not set out in the material quoted and should be checked against the full report.

The Bank pairs these findings with a series of cautions. It says the pace of growth underscores the importance of strengthening public investment management and building institutional capacity. It also stresses the need to ensure that oil wealth translates into broad-based and inclusive development.

A further risk concerns the budget. The Bank notes that countries in Guyana's position must manage volatile revenue and avoid procyclical policy while public finances expand quickly. Procyclical policy means increasing spending when revenue is high and cutting it when revenue falls, which tends to amplify swings in the economy rather than smooth them.

The growth rates in the report depend heavily on oil. Output volumes and global prices both affect revenue and GDP, and the material available gives no production figures or price assumptions behind the Bank's projections. Estimates and forecasts of this kind are also revised as new data arrive, so the figures for 2025 onwards may change in later editions of the update.

Nor does the report, as quoted here, examine how the benefits of growth are distributed across the population, which is the concern behind the Bank's call for inclusive development. Independent economists and the Guyanese government would be expected to give their own readings of the findings, and neither is represented in this account.