Suriname’s New Leader Vows to Make Oil Wealth ‘Available to All’
(Bloomberg) -- Suriname officially elected its first female president as the small, Dutch-speaking nation on the Caribbean coast of South America prepares to navigate an oil boom.
Lawmakers backed Jennifer Geerlings-Simons and her vice president, Gregory Rusland, on Sunday in the Surinamese capital of Paramaribo after the incumbent party opted against putting forward a challenger.
Geerlings-Simons, a 71-year-old former parliamentary speaker who campaigned on a more socially inclusive strategy, is set to be inaugurated on July 16. “I come into this position to serve and I will use all my knowledge, strength and dedication to make our wealth available to all our people, but with special attention to our youth,” she told the National Assembly.
Her National Democratic Party government is taking office as TotalEnergies SE begins development of the offshore GranMorgu project, which is expected to produce 220,000 barrels per day in 2028. The French energy giant and Malaysia’s Petronas are searching for more oil in the Guyana-Suriname basin.
Suriname’s reserves are estimated at 760 million barrels and its $4.5 billion economy is forecast to grow 3.2% this year. Growth is on track to slowly edge up to near 4% by 2027 before a more than ten-fold surge once crude starts flowing.
Sunday’s unopposed victory by Geerlings-Simons caps a lengthy electoral process in which her NDP won 18 seats in the May 25 national vote. It later negotiated at coalition with five other parties to form a 34-seat majority in the 51-member legislature. The Progressive Reform Party of outgoing President Chandrikapersad Santokhi holds the remaining 17 seats.
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