MoFA Holds 2023 Diplomatic Brief

Eamon Courtenay

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Immigration held its annual diplomatic brief earlier today at the Leigh Richardson Building in Belmopan.  During the hour-long presentation, Foreign Minister Eamon Courtenay touched on a number of issues of national importance, including the state of the economy.

Eamon Courtenay, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“We hope in this presentation to share with you some of the challenges we face.  I will return, of course, to the presentation made by Mr. Manzanero because it has very serious security consequences for us, as well as environmental challenges.  I will also seek to define for you some of our objectives and to look at what are the things that we have very high on our agenda for the rest of the year.  Let us start first by taking a look at the economy.  For the first quarter of 2023, economic growth was very significant.  Over eleven percent, very high for the Caribbean, very high for the Central American region.  Of course, we have to bow to Guyana which has over fifty percent economic growth in 2023.  Our economic growth is driven primarily by services and the activities as we rebound from the COVID epidemic.  We are talking about tourism, financial services, retail sales and construction and manufacturing, drive by and large the recovery.”