GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

President Bharrat Jagdeo says the future socio-economic future of Guyana will depend on the ruling to be delivered by a United Nations arbitration panel regarding the 40-year old border dispute Georgetown has with its fellow Caribbean Community (CARICOM) neighbour, Suriname.

"Securing an authoritative line of delimitation will offer significant opportunities for Guyana's economic development, as (well as) for Suriname's," Jagdeo told a news conference here on Tuesday. Jagdeo said he hoped the start of the hearing by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Seas today day "will settle with finality the boundary between the off-shore areas of Guyana and Suriname."