Expo 2002 highlights Belizean businesses
It is the biggest business exhibition of the year and has become a favourite of bargain hunters during the September celebrations. A short while ago News 5’s Janelle Chanona headed out to Princess Margaret Drive to see what’s new at Expo 2002.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This afternoon, official opening ceremonies were held on the grounds of the S.J.C. Gymnasium to mark the start of this year’s Expo weekend.
According to the President of the Belize Chamber of Commerce, Mark Lizarraga, this year’s activities demonstrate the determination of the business community to impress the Belizean consumer.
Mark Lizarraga, President, Belize Chamber of Commerce
“Belizean businesses get to visit with the public at large, sit down, talk with them, show them what they are doing, offer them deals, offer them new promotions, talk to them about new lines, new products, different services. And that’s what it’s all about, it’s about taking two days out to meet with ten or twenty thousand people that walk through this place and sit down and say hi, how can we serve you better, what can we do for you, or this is what we’re doing for you, what do you think about it. So sit down, get to know your customers I think.”
Today the Belize Chamber of Commerce signed a cooperation agreement with their counterparts from Cuban. The move represents the need for Belize to develop broader regional trade relationships in light of the current economic climate.
Janelle Chanona
“In the grander scheme of things, we’ve heard conflicting reports in society on the state of the Belize economy. In your eyes, how are things going?”
Mark Lizarraga
“Trick question. It depends on whom you speak to, obviously. We get a lot of perceptions, people speak to us everyday. My telephone is always ringing about people’s concerns, legitimate concerns sometimes, other times, maybe not as well founded. There are some pressing issues, as you would know right now for the business community. One of them is foreign exchange. It continues to be an enigma. We’re looking at that, the Economic Policy Advisory Committee, of which the Chamber chairs, is still going a study on that. We were hoping that the Casa de Cambios would have made a more positive impact on the supply of foreign exchange, but that’s not what we’re hearing. It does seem to be giving the impact that we thought it would give.
“Obviously, again, business in Belize is affected tremendously by what happens to our big brother in the north, the United States economy has been going through some problems of its own. People say when the U.S. sneezes we catch pneumonia.
“What we have been doing, is focusing on Central. We think that there’s a lot we can do right in our region, just one day by truck away from Belize trade can commence. We can start buying more from Salvador, we are buying a lot from Salvador, we can start buying more from Guatemala, we’ve been buying from Guatemala and we can start selling them stuff. A truck can come full with goods, it can go back full with goods.
“That’s what we’ve been focusing on, we’ve been trying to see if we can creating our own little economy here in Central America. Everybody’s getting together, everybody’s signing agreements for trade cooperation and we think we’re a little left behind. So there’s an urgency to this for us at least, I think, and Central America will be big focus and the region will be a big focus for us this term.”
Reporting for News 5, I am Janelle Chanona.
Organisers of this year’s Expo are anticipating that more than ten thousand Belizeans will visit the two day business fair.
