Quick Facts:

• % Contribution to GDP: Agriculture 8.8; National 3.0 (Budgeted) (2002)
• Fishing Area: (200nm), 138,240 km, Shelf 48,665 km²
• Fishermen: 5,644
• Landing sites: There are over 100 landing sites in Guyana but the major ones are: Region 2:15; Region 3: 12; Region 4: 12; Region 5: 4; Region 6: 6. There are seven Industrial Sites.
• Fish Imports: Data not available.
• Fish Exports: 19, 322 MT/ USD 63.9 Million
• Fish vendors/hawkers: No data available.
• Fish processors: Six (6) Licensed Industrial Processors; Nine (9) Cottage Industry Processors
• Importers: Approximately 20 major importers of seafood products Exporters: Include the six (6) major licensed processors, cottage industry and private individuals (approximately 20).

Notes:

1. The Guyana coast is part of the continental shelf (often referred to as the "Guiana Banks") extending along the north east of South America (includes the marine territorial waters of Guyana, Suriname, French Guyana and Brazil) where numerous rivers, carrying freshwater and nutrients from the hinterland, drain into the ocean. Because of the slow-moving westward-flowing south equatorial current, the nutrients and sediment from the various rivers (Amazon and Orinoco principally) are deposited along the coast, resulting in shallow and highly productive waters.
2. Fish stocks southeast of the mouth of the Essequibo appear to be part of a joint Surinam-Guyana fisheries zone, Northwest of the Essequibo, the shelf is generally less productive. Stocks here represent a fisheries ecosystem unique to Guyana that may be a result of the transition to the Orinoco River system found off Venezuela.
3. Current fishing activities are focused principally on demersal species (finfish and shrimp) on the narrow continental shelf with negligible activity beyond the shelf. There is scope for the exploitation of the large pelagic.
4. Refers to small scale fishermen only. About 1300 fishermen are boat owners (between 40-50% of the boat owners are members of Fishermen's Cooperatives)
5. There are 7 Artisanal Fisheries Infrastructure Complexes financed by the government and with the assistance from CIDA and EEC. The complexes are leased to individuals and fishermen's co-operatives.
6. There are six industrial processing capacity of 20,000 mt/yr.
7. Export data on finfish and shrimp products are collected by the Department of Fisheries from local processing plants. Annual exports of shrimp for 2002 was 9,755 mt. Prawns are exported mainly as frozen shell-on tails to the US and Japan. Sea bob is mainly exported as peeled meat to the US. Grey snapper, gillbacker and bangamary are the main export species.
8. In 2002, 86% of the total finfish landed was from the artisanal fishery, of which 70 - 80 % is sold directly to the industrial fishery. The industrial fishery landed 1,505 mt (whole weight) of prawns in 2002. The combined Prawns, Sea bob and White belly shrimp landings from the artisanal and industrial fleets were 20,563 mt (unprocessed wt.).