Will Trade Agreement Help?

Hugo Juarez

According to Juarez, there are instances where prices on the shelves at the free zone aren’t as eye-catching as they are across the border.  While he could not provide an exact number in terms of closures, Juarez told News Five today that a partial scope trade agreement is in the works between Belize and Mexico.

Hugo Juarez, Minister of Legal Affairs, Mexican Embassy

“What we think, we don’t have precise figures because the Belizean government is the one that controls the opening of businesses up there.  What we believe is that because of the lowering of sales that will make entrepreneurs close.  They are not earning enough money vis-à-vis their investment and obviously if you’re losing you’re going to close. Sometimes the price of the products in the free zone are not that attractive for the consumer in Mexico and the consumer in Belize cannot buy these products and introduce them freely to Belize.  This is a problem that is happening at the free zone.  How we see it in the Mexican Embassy is that we, as we are, we are working with the Belizean government in order to have a partial scope trade agreement in order to have a more organized trade between both countries that will support the producers mainly in Belize, but in the southern part of Mexico too and to try not to distort any of the markets with the products that could be very inexpensive, for example in the case of potatoes or onions that because of the scale of the production units in Mexico can be of a lesser price than the onions or potatoes produced in Belize.  Both countries are working in order to decide in which areas we’ll have this free trade with lower tariffs that will make the Belizean products, by example, less expensive to bought by the Mexican consumer.”

The Commercial Free Zone serves to provide facilities for different activities such as manufacturing, processing, warehousing, packaging and distribution of goods and services.