The Guyana Ex­po 2025 opened here on Thurs­day night with Pres­i­dent Ir­fan Ali an­nounc­ing a US$200 mil­lion ini­tia­tive that is set to be­come op­er­a­tional be­fore the end of the first quar­ter of 2026.

He told the au­di­ence that the gov­ern­ment’s trans­for­ma­tive Guyana De­vel­op­ment Bank (GDB), cap­i­talised at a min­i­mum of US$200 mil­lion, aims to cre­ate fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for small and medi­um-sized En­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

”We have start­ed al­ready to put the mech­a­nism in place for the Guyana De­vel­op­ment Bank,” he said, adding that “the ad­min­is­tra­tive, le­gal, and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work is be­ing craft­ed”.