Ease on taxes would boost production of construction material

– for construction boom
– Finance Minister

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Hon. Dr. Ashni Singh said measures have been put in place for the imminent construction boom.

The Government plans to deliver some 50,000 house lots to citizens by the end of its first term in office. This year alone, some 10,000 house lots will be distributed.   

To meet this demand, the Administration has already started removing the value-added tax on construction materials and would be moving to boost domestic production of those materials.

During his guest appearance on GlobeSpan 24×7 on Monday, Minister Singh said: “We are taking a number of steps to increase availability of construction materials. The first is on the tax policy side.

You would have seen that we have already started to remove taxes on construction materials on things like sand, stone and cement and other materials like locally produced roofing materials and PVC materials. There are measures that we have implemented on the tax side to try to help to keep the cost of those items as modest as possible.”

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for finance, Dr. Ashni Singh

The 2021 National Budget provides for the zero-rating of some construction material. This includes stone imported for construction and housing from CARICOM, locally produced, pre-stressed concrete piles, locally fabricated, mild, steel beams for building construction, and locally manufactured roofing and PVC products for building construction. The industrial grade cement duty has also been reduced from 15 to 5 per cent.

Dr. Singh said Guyana produces a lot of construction materials, including sand and stone while some is sourced from across the Region.

“And so, we are trying to ramp up local production. So, things like opening of new quarries of encouraging current quarry holders to increase their production and even in the case of regional importation, we have a market that is opened for regional producers of stone. A few Caribbean Islands export stones to us.”

Construction activities will also increase in the public sector. Dr. Singh noted that the private sector would also be expanding the economy through the construction of hotels, factories and warehouses here, while international companies will be setting up headquarters in Guyana. Minister of Natural Resources Hon. Vickram Bharrat in January said the Government had started working with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to increase production of construction aggregates to over one million tonnes for 2021, to meet the demands of the coming infrastructure development.

CATEGORIES
TAGS