D.F.C. and CARICOM Development Fund Sign Agreement

The Development Finance Corporation and the CARICOM Development Fund have entered into an agreement for a Credit Risk Abatement Facility.  It is aimed at providing small and medium enterprises with access to financing for investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.  Belize is now one of five CARICOM countries to have adopted the C.D.F.’s program which will provide support for eligible projects, ranging between fifty thousand and one point five million Belize dollars.

Henry Anderson

Henry Anderson, Chairman, D.F.C.

“It plays a big role because as the global temperature has been warming, we have seen new weather patterns.  So for example, in agriculture, if you talk to our farmers now, they use to plant at a certain time in the year and the rains would come at a certain time in the year.  Like we should be in the dry season now, it’s raining, so things are changing and you have to come up with ways to mitigate. Let’s take the tourism sector for example, you have energy efficient equipment that they could use that will lower the cost of, let’s say, energy. Now with a facility like this, what it allows the D.F.C. to do, it allows it to lend to these small operations without taking land collateral. So it’s a beautiful thing because we can lend at lower interest rates, we don’t require collateral because we have the partial guarantee that’s under the fund and what it does for the entities, with an energy efficient project, you save, and so by saving it creates the cash flow to pay.  So it’s a real win-win situation on all parts.  In the bigger scheme of things what it allows Belize to do is to stimulate sustainable investment where we‘re moving the country towards the path of going to Net Zero which is beneficial for the environment and for human life.”