Guyana - Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)

Total natural resources rents (% of GDP) in Guyana was 4.01 as of 2019. Its highest value over the past 49 years was 34.16 in 1982, while its lowest value was 4.01 in 2019.

Definition: Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents.

Source: Estimates based on sources and methods described in "The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium" (World Bank, 2011).

See also:

Year Value
1970 20.71
1971 18.50
1972 17.30
1973 19.61
1974 22.37
1975 20.63
1976 20.89
1977 27.70
1978 25.65
1979 26.41
1980 24.56
1981 23.06
1982 34.16
1983 17.98
1984 24.26
1985 20.68
1986 19.97
1987 28.24
1988 18.52
1989 20.71
1990 23.14
1991 29.86
1992 25.51
1993 31.66
1994 32.93
1995 33.59
1996 29.79
1997 25.99
1998 17.72
1999 17.78
2000 15.51
2001 12.91
2002 12.79
2003 16.95
2004 21.20
2005 20.83
2006 9.71
2007 10.81
2008 10.36
2009 10.72
2010 14.59
2011 16.32
2012 16.53
2013 13.67
2014 10.80
2015 8.56
2016 16.09
2017 13.17
2018 6.55
2019 4.01

Development Relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future.

Limitations and Exceptions: This definition of economic rent differs from that used in the System of National Accounts, where rents are a form of property income, consisting of payments to landowners by a tenant for the use of the land or payments to the owners of subsoil assets by institutional units permitting them to extract subsoil deposits.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the world price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs (including a normal return on capital). These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Environment Indicators

Sub-Topic: Natural resources contribution to GDP