Latest update June 16th, 2026 12:40 AM
Synergies with Brazil
At the commemoration of the 191st anniversary of the independence of Brazil, both President Ramotar and Brazilian Ambassador Luiz Seixas DeAndrade emphasised the mutual benefits of improving the transportation linkages between our two countries. We have products such as rice that can be exported to northern Brazil, while the Brazilians have for decades been stressing their desire for an overland passage to the North Atlantic for their goods produced in Manaus and other northern locales.
Such benefits have long been recognized as having positive implications for trade and commerce within a far wider circle, and indeed, encompassing all South America. Back in late 2000, as a matter of fact, at a meeting of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), President Bharat Jagdeo was one of 12 South American Heads of State that launched the “Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America” (IIRSA). This unprecedented multinational, multi-sectoral, and multi-disciplinary initiative’s main objective, as the name suggests, was to develop the region’s infrastructure.
Because of the contingency of historical happenstance, the geographical reality on the ground as far as resources are concerned, is definitely not in sync with the geopolitical and socio-economic realities of the continent. The Heads of state agreed to the organization of South American space “in multinational strips that concentrate populations, present and potential regional production and commercial flow that would gradually converge towards common quality standard of infrastructure services in transportation, energy and telecommunications.” These multinational strips were given the name Integration and Development Axes (EID). We were included in the Guyana Shield Axis (Venezuela-Brazil-Guyana-Suriname), of which the north-south Guyana-Brazil linkages were always seen as most feasible. The second component is a link from Caracas to their border and through Region 8 to Linden, continuing and connecting Suriname and then French Guiana.
As early as 2003, on an official visit to Brazil, then Presidents Jagdeo and Lula reiterated their commitment to the heavy duty road linking Georgetown and Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima; the construction of a deep water harbour; a hydro-electricity facility in Guyana and the development of an industrial area in Boa Vista-as part of the Guyana Shield Axis initiative under IIRSA. Lula kept their side of the bargain and six years later, the Bridge across the Takatu was formally opened.
But for reasons that have never been made clear, the initiative has not moved from the border since then, even though during his visit to Guyana in 2007, Lula had reiterated the urgency of the project to Brazil. For Guyana, the benefits were enormous: fees for goods passing through to the Coast; harbour and storage fees etc. and even possibly assembly of products from components bulk-shipped from Brazil.
The financing of the project does not appear to pose a major hurdle. Apart from government sourced funding there are the multilateral funding institutions like IDB, CAF, and FONPLATA that have been integrally involved with IIRSA. For the Brazil-Guyana linkages and infrastructural development, Brazil has always indicated they were willing to play a major role in funding. After President Lula’s visit to Guyana, the proposal for the construction of a hydro-electric facility that would supply electricity far in excess of Guyana’s needs with the surplus exported to Northern Brazil was floated. With Brazil also signing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the hydro-facility, the funding should not face the hurdles confronting Amaila Hydro.
Since last December, pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a bilateral working group collaborated on the modalities for the Highway, deep water harbour and the Hydro Project. This was presented to the Presidents of Brazil and Guyana last month and according to the Brazilian Ambassador, a Joint Commission was established and is scheduled to meet later this month.
The scuttling of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project adds a special urgency to the other components of the initiative that have been dragging on for decades. We hope that the matter is given the greatest urgency.
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