New Financial Incentives Act to Promote M.S.M.E. Sustainability

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister Briceño also introduced a Fiscal Incentives Bill to the House of Representatives. The revised Fiscal Incentives Act will see Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises taking advantage of a million dollars in duty and excise duty exemptions, among other benefits.  It’s a huge step in the advancement of the M.S.M.E. sector here in Belize.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We want to allow MSMEs to allow for import duty, revenue replacement duty and excise duty exemption for an import value of no more than one million dollars for a period of four years. So they have four years to apply for these exemptions and it may be extended to four more years depending on the case by case basis. The submission of audited statements, one of the criticism we are given when it comes of BELTRAIDE is that you must have an audited statement and most small businesses don’t even have an accountant much less an audited statement. So, the submission of financials will only apply to large companies and not to MSMEs. So the audited statement, for companies that request import duties exemptions with imports of less than one million dollars, you will not be required to have an audited statement to be able to get it. Some of the things we want to give also is that the MSMEs can receive an incentive that will given access to government procurement prioritization of twenty percent of goods and services consumed by government. We want to ensure that twenty percent of the business that government gives out will go to small businesses.”