Guyana is looking to Qatar for more than investment.
President Irfaan Ali says the country wants to draw on Qatar's experience as it attempts to convert an oil boom into a broader, more resilient economy.
Speaking to Al Jazeera during a visit to Doha, Ali said Qatar is important to Guyana not only because of its financial capacity, but because of what it has learned from managing rapid economic transformation.
“We see Qatar as an important partner for Guyana, not only from an investment perspective, but from an institutional perspective,” Ali said.
Guyana is now entering a phase in which the challenge is no longer simply attracting companies to discover and produce oil. The country has to determine what happens to the wealth generated by that production.
Ali said Guyana is studying how Qatar built opportunities around its energy sector while developing other areas of the economy.
He pointed to the similarities between the two countries: relatively small populations, major natural-resource wealth and the need to create economic opportunities beyond the domestic market.
“Many of the countries in the region has to look at where they can invest in some amount of redundancy,” Ali said.
For Guyana, that could mean using oil wealth to develop agriculture, food production, technology, infrastructure, tourism and other sectors capable of generating income after petroleum becomes less dominant.
Guyana and Qatar have already identified food security, energy security, technology, human capital development and critical infrastructure as areas for closer cooperation.
Ali's comments suggest that Georgetown's interest in Qatar is therefore not simply about attracting another foreign investor.
It is also about finding a model.
Guyana's oil production is rising rapidly, while its entitlement from the ExxonMobil-led Stabroek Block has recently increased substantially after the consortium recovered its project costs. Reuters reported that Guyana's entitlement is now 39.8% of production, compared with 12.5% originally.
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