Glossary -- Guyana (Guyana and Belize)
- Belizean dollar (Bz$)
- Belizean monetary unit, divided into 100 cents. The official
fixed exchange rate of US$1=Bz$2 was established in 1976 and
remained in effect in 1991.
- cay
- In Belize low island or reef of sand or coral. The customary
spelling in the United States, key, is not used in Belize.
- Creole
- In Belize a term used for an English-speaking person of African
or mixed African and European ancestry.
- crown colony
- A system of British colonial administration under which Britain
retained control over defense, foreign affairs, internal security,
and various administrative and budget matters. Crown colonies were
governed internally by a British-appointed governor and a locally
elected assembly. Prior to the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in
1865, crown colony government was limited to Trinidad and St.
Lucia. In 1871 in Belize and in 1928 in Guyana, the representative
assemblies were dissolved, and the colonies were governed directly
by the Colonial Office in London and by a British-appointed
governor who was assisted by a local council, most of whose members
were appointed by the governor. In time, however, an increasing
number of officials were locally elected rather than appointed.
Following the report of the Moyne Commission in 1938, the crown
colony system was modified to make local councils even more
representative and to give local officials more administrative
responsibility. Nevertheless, defense, foreign affairs, and
internal security remained the prerogatives of the crown.
- Enterprise for the Americas Initiative
(EAI)
- A plan announced by President George H.W. Bush on June 27,
1990, calling for the United States to negotiate agreements with
selected Latin American countries to reduce their official debt to
the United States and make funds available through this
restructuring for environmental programs; to stimulate private
investment; and to take steps to promote extensive trade
liberalization with the goal of establishing free trade throughout
the Western Hemisphere.
- fiscal year (FY)
- Guyana's fiscal year is the calendar year. Belize's fiscal year
runs from April 1 to March 31.
- Garifuna
- An ethnic group descended from the Carib of the Eastern
Caribbean and from Africans who had escaped from slavery. The
Garifuna resisted the British and the French in the Windward
Islands until they were defeated by the British in 1796. After
putting down a violent Garifuna rebellion on Saint Vincent, the
British moved the Garifuna across the Caribbean to the Bay Islands
(present-day Islas de la Bahía) in the Gulf of Honduras. From there
they migrated to the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua, Honduras,
Guatemala, and southern British Honduras. Garifuna also refers to
their language.
- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT)
- An intergovernmental agency related to the United Nations and
headquartered in Geneva, GATT was established in 1948 as a
multilateral treaty with the aim of liberalizing and stabilizing
world trade. GATT's fundamental principles include
nondiscriminatory trade among members, protection of domestic trade
through the customs tariff, and agreement on tariff levels through
negotiations among the contracting parties. The Uruguay Round of
major multilateral trade negotiations, the eighth such round of
negotiations, began at Punta del Este in September 1986 and was
still underway at the end of 1991.
- gross domestic product (GDP)
- A measure of the total value of goods and services produced by
the domestic economy during a given period, usually one year. GDP
is obtained by adding the value contributed by each sector of the
economy in the form of profits, compensation to employees, and
depreciation (consumption of capital). Only domestic production is
included, not income arising from investments and possessions owned
abroad, hence the use of the word domestic to distinguish
GDP from gross national product (q.v.).
- gross national product (GNP)
- The total market value of all final goods and services produced
by an economy during a year. GNP is obtained by adding the gross
domestic product (q.v.) and the income received from
abroad by residents less payments remitted abroad to nonresidents.
- Guyanese dollar (G$)
- Guyanese monetary unit, divided into 100 cents. The Guyanese
dollar was repeatedly devalued in the 1980s, the official exchange
rate dropping from US$1=G$4.25 in 1985 to US$1=G$10 in 1987. In
April 1989, the government changed the official exchange rate to
US$1=G$33. The unofficial (market) exchange rate at that time was
reportedly US$1=G$60. In February 1991, the exchange rate was
devalued further to align the official rate with the market rate,
and the official exchange rate was adjusted weekly to keep this
parity. As of June 1991, the official rate was US$1=G$125.
- import-substitution industrialization
- An economic development strategy that emphasizes the growth of
domestic industries, often by import protection using tariff and
nontariff measures. Proponents favor the export of industrial goods
over primary products.
- International Monetary Fund
(IMF)
- Established along with the World Bank (q.v.) in 1945,
the IMF is a specialized agency affiliated with the United Nations
that takes responsibility for stabilizing international exchange
rates and payments. The main business of the IMF is the provision
of loans to its members when they experience balance-of-payments
difficulties. These loans often carry conditions that require
substantial internal economic adjustments by the recipients.
- Lesser Antilles
- The easternmost islands of the West Indies (q.v.)
extending from the Virgin Islands through Trinidad and including
the small islands off the north coast of South America. Some of
these islands are divided further into two subgroups: the Leeward
Islands consisting of the northern part of the Lesser Antilles from
the Virgin Islands through Dominica and including Anguilla, Saint
Christopher (Saint Kitts) and Nevis, Barbuda, Antigua, and
Guadeloupe; and the Windward Islands stretching from Martinique
through Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent to Grenada. Trinidad, Tobago,
Barbados, and the islands off the north coast of South America do
not belong to either subgroup. The names Leeward and
Windward refer to their sheltered (leeward) or exposed
(windward) position relative to the prevailing northeasterly trade
winds.
- Lomé Convention
- A series of agreements between the European Economic Community
(EEC) and a group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states,
mainly former European colonies, providing duty-free or
preferential access to the EEC market for almost all ACP exports.
The Stabilization of Export Earnings Scheme, a mechanism set up by
the Lomé Convention, provides compensation for ACP export earnings
lost through fluctuations in the world prices of agricultural
commodities. The Lomé Convention also provides for limited EEC
development aid and investment funds to be disbursed to ACP
recipients through the European Development Fund and the European
Investment Bank. The Lomé Convention is updated every five years.
Lomé I took effect on April 1, 1976; Lomé II, on January 1, 1981;
Lomé III, on March 1, 1985; Lomé IV, on March 1, 1990.
- Mestizo
- In Belize a term used for a Spanish-speaking person of mixed
European and Mayan ancestry.
- 936 funds
- Funds deposited by United States-based corporations in the
Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico in order to take
advantage of Section 936 of the United States Internal Revenue
Service Code, under which income derived from sources in Puerto
Rico is exempted from United States income taxes. The funds may be
used to help finance twin plant ventures with countries that have
signed a bilateral tax information exchange agreement with the
United States.
- Rastafarian(ism)
- An Afro-Christian revivalist cult formed in Jamaica in the
early 1920s. The so-called Rastafarian Brethren emphasized
rejection of both Jamaican and European culture in favor of
eventual repatriation to Africa. Identifying Africa with Ethiopia,
Rastafarians viewed then Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as God
incarnate. As hope of returning to Africa dwindled, Rastafarianism
became more of a religious than a political movement. Rastafarians
developed a system of beliefs compatible with their poverty and
aloofness from society and similar to mystical experiences found in
other protest religions. Rastas (as they are known in common
parlance) have come to symbolize the movement away from white
domination and toward a heightened black identity and pride. Rasta
thought, reggae music, dance, and literature have been popularized
throughout West Indian culture.
- special drawing rights (SDRs)
- Monetary unit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
(q.v.) based on a basket of international currencies
consisting of the United States dollar, the German deutsche mark,
the Japanese yen, the British pound sterling, and the French franc.
- Sunni (from sunna, meaning
`custom,' giving connotation of orthodoxy in theory and
practice)
- A member of the larger of the great divisions of Islam. The
Sunnis supported the traditional method of election to the
caliphate and accepted the Umayyad line. On this issue then divided
from the Shia in the first great Schism with in Islam.
- Tariff Schedule 807 program
- Refers to items 806.3 and 807 of the Tariff Schedules of the
United States that allow the duty-free entry of goods whose final
product contains a certain portion of raw material or labor value
added in the Caribbean Basin.
- twin plant
- Productive arrangements whereby two or more producers in
separate countries complementarily share the production of a good
or service. Under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), such
arrangements with the government of Puerto Rico potentially
benefited from special investment or 936 funds (q.v.). The
operations of twin plant ventures typically entailed the delegation
of assembly or other labor-intensive production stages to plants in
a CBI-designated country, from which these semi-finished products
would then be shipped duty-free to Puerto Rico for final
processing.
- West Indies
- Term for islands in or bordering the Caribbean Sea, including
the small islands off the north coast of South America, and the
Bahama Islands. The West Indies are commonly divided into three
groups: the Bahamas, which include the Commonwealth of the Bahamas
and the British crown colony of the Turks and Caicos; the Greater
Antilles, which consist of the four largest islands of Cuba,
Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Jamaica, and Puerto
Rico; and the Lesser Antilles (q.v.) which consist of the
smaller easternmost islands stretching from the Virgin Islands
through Trinidad and the small islands off the coast of South
America.
- World Bank
- The informal name used to designate a group of four affiliated
international institutions: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International
Development Association (IDA), the International Finance
Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA). The IBRD, established in 1945, has the primary purpose of
providing loans at market-related rates of interest to developing
countries at more advanced stages of development. The IDA, a
legally separate loan fund but administered by the staff of the
IBRD, was set up in 1960 to furnish credits to the poorest
developing countries on much easier terms than those of
conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, founded in 1956, supplements the
activities of the IBRD through loans and assistance designed
specifically to encourage the growth of productive private
enterprises in less developed countries. The MIGA, founded in 1988,
insures private foreign investment in developing countries against
various noncommercial risks. The president and certain officers of
the IBRD hold the same positions in the IFC. The four institutions
are owned by the governments of the countries that subscribe their
capital. To participate in the World Bank group, member states must
first belong to the International Monetary Fund (q.v.).
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