OP-ED: World Trade Losers – Guyana’s Boom is a Neocolonial Mirage, Foreigners Win, ‘Common Man’ Lose

The recent launch of the World Trade Centre Georgetown (WTCG) was met with the familiar fanfare of government optimism. Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh spoke of “unlocking new trade opportunities” and building a “diversified, globally competitive” economy. The rhetoric is polished, the vision grand. But for the average Guyanese, this new institution risks becoming just another elegant facade for an old and extractive game: the siphoning of our nation’s wealth under the banner of “global trade,” leaving our people with little more than the crumbs of below-market wages and the false promise of progress.

Beneath the glossy surface of this new development lies a neocolonial blueprint that is becoming frighteningly familiar. The immense wealth generated from our natural resources, first sugar and timber, now oil and gas, is not building generational wealth for Guyanese. Instead, it is being strategically funneled to international corporations and a small, connected local elite. This is not trade; it is a transfer.

The mechanisms of this siphoning are clear. We see it in production-sharing agreements for our oil that are skewed heavily in favor of multinational giants, ensuring the vast majority of the profits flow out of the country. We see it in tax holidays and concessions that rob the state treasury of revenue that should be funding schools, hospitals, and infrastructure for all. We see it in supply chains dominated by foreign companies that import everything from the machinery to the expertise, marginalizing local businesses and ensuring that the economic multipliers of this boom are felt elsewhere. The World Trade Centre, rather than challenging this model, threatens to institutionalize it, providing a polished hub for the very entities that benefit from this imbalance.

And what is the promised benefit for the people of Guyana? The Minister speaks of “expanding economic prospects for Guyanese businesses,” but the reality on the ground for many is an offer of below-market wages. The narrative pushed by investors and their government allies is that we should be grateful for any job, that our labour is not yet worthy of world-class compensation. This is the cruel logic of neocolonialism: our resources are world-class, but our people are not. We are told to accept a pittance today for a prosperity that is always tomorrow.

This model offers no true empowerment. It does not foster the transfer of cutting-edge technology or the development of a robust, independent class of Guyanese entrepreneurs and engineers. It creates a nation of labourers, not leaders; of wage-earners, not wealth-owners. There is no path to generational wealth in a paycheck that barely covers the cost of living, inflated by the very economic boom that is supposed to save us. The profound disparity between the astronomical figures of GDP growth and the stagnant wages in the pockets of working Guyanese tells the whole story. The wealth is generated here, but it is not for us.

The launch of the World Trade Centre Georgetown should be a moment of national pride and opportunity. For it to become so, we must demand a fundamental renegotiation of our place in the global economy. True development is not measured in the number of glittering buildings or the volume of exports, but in the health, education, and financial security of a nation’s people.

The government must move beyond celebratory speeches and use institutions like the WTCG to aggressively advocate for local content that means something; for Guyanese ownership, for fair wages that reflect the value we create, and for sovereign wealth funds that invest directly in our people. Otherwise, we are not players in world trade; we are its losers, watching from the sidelines as our birthright is packaged and sold, leaving us with only the empty promise of a prosperity we will never see.