Mayors from Belize City and Chetumal Sign Sister City Agreement

Belizeans in the thousands flock across the northern border to shop, but trade is about to go up even higher. On Tuesday, the mayors from Belize City and the City of Chetumal, Quintana Roo ratified a sister city agreement between both municipalities. The agreement is expected to bolster areas of trade and commerce, as well as tourism, sports and cultural exchanges. According to Bradley, there has always been an informal arrangement between both cities and this significant agreement provides a legal framework for interchanges between Belize and Chetumal.

Darrell Bradley

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“What this agreement does is create a formal channel now that we can talk about very specific and legal ways in terms of interchanges between Belize and Chetumal. One of the discussions that we were having is with relation to the transportation difficulties; the vehicles being required to have insurance. I was talking to our consul over there in terms of the amount of Belizeans who have been detained for traffic infractions. So what the Sister City agreement does is that it creates a formal channel between Belize City and their municipality in terms of ways that we can have very meaningful and substantial interchanges. The mayor of Chetumal visited us just last year. We are hoping that he can come to visit us in January or February of this year and we are also going to invite San Pedro who also have a sister city arrangement with Chetumal because one of the things that we want to do is to promote Chetumal and Belize City and San Pedro together. One of the specific ideas that we were talking about is having a Belize City office in the municipality of Chetumal and they having an office in the municipality of Belize so that there can be more formal and substantive channels established between our two municipalities.”