Prime Minister Leads Delegation to N.Y.C. to Discuss Blue Bonds

Prime Minister John Briceño and a delegation of senior government officials return to Belize on Saturday after concluding a round of meetings in New York City over the past three days.  While in the U.S., PM Briceño attended a Blue Bond meeting, as well as Latin Finance’s Latin America Capital Markets Summit.  While in New York, he also received a Sovereign Restructuring Award of the Year on behalf of the people and Government of Belize.  We spoke by phone with PM Briceño earlier today.

Prime Minister John Briceño

On the phone: Prime Minister John Briceño

“We’ve been having a number of meetings here in New York, including [being] part of a panel discussion on Wall Street, the Stock Exchange, yesterday morning.  We were talking about emerging markets and everybody wants to know more about Belize and how it restructured its debt and paying off the so-called Super Bond and now working on the Blue Bond and that is being used for marine conservation.  And so, when we met Citi, one, they were a part of what we were doing so we want to be able to personally thank them for the work that they have don.  But now that we are finished with that, now we have to look at the next step.  What are the other opportunities that are out there for Belize, and certainly now the issue is of carbon sequestration.  I know carbon sequestration, we’ve been discussing this issue, as some would say, forever.  From since the early 2000s when I was the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.  It seems that we finally seem to be getting somewhere as to how we can monetize carbon sequestration.  Belize, we are what you call a carbon sink, we clean the air, and so we are working on a formula for how we can work out how much tons of carbon credits we can get and now how it’s going to be monetized.  Citi wants to take a look at that and see how they could assist Belize in getting what we have and see how they could market it and they could get partners to meet with us to see what price we would be able to get.”