Gov. Leon Guerrero: "More opportunities will come" 

Gov. Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero offers word of hope to Guamanians in a letter to the editor, where she lists the different types of assistance given to residents and businesses. In the last couple of years, the cost of goods and foods have risen dramatically due to COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions that have disrupted the supply chain. Regional small businesses recently commented on inflation having a significant impact this past year in how they do business in response to a Guam Business Magazine survey. (You can find the GBM survey here) 

"Despite all these efforts, we know we aren’t where we need to be economically, but we know we are better than we were before. While we still have so much farther to go, signs of our continued recovery from global economic threats are clear," she wrote in part. 

See the full letter below: 


Sept. 20, 2023

Editor,

Our administration knows how hard our people work. And no one can deny that a dollar just doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. Everywhere we look, prices are up, wages feel flat, and people are doing more and more to earn less and less. But we aren’t alone.

The current inflationary period started nationwide in April 2021, when consumer prices jumped at the fastest pace in over a decade. At the time, experts hoped inflation everywhere would be temporary while world economies bounced back from COVID-19.

But as months progressed, supply chain bottlenecks persisted, and the nation as a whole was then hammered by unanticipated shocks to the economy, including subsequent COVID-19 variants, new lockdowns in China, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This meant supply chains stayed choked, energy prices stayed high, and the cost to transport everything from groceries to medicine climbed —especially if you lived on a tiny island in the Pacific.

This is why our administration focused on policies and programs that directly impacted people’s pocketbooks here at home. We knew that by helping where we could, families could put other dollars where they had to.