Throughout the last decade Guyana continued to experience drastic social and economic decline with an average growth rate of 23 percent. Towards the end of the decade the government initiated the IMF supported economic recovery programme aimed, inter alia, at restoring fiscal balance, reducing imbalances in the external accounts, rehabilitating vital socio-economic infrastructure, increasing domestic production and exports, reducing the relative size of the public sector to encourage the private sector to incrase its participation in the development of the economy