BELTRAIDE produces guide for investors

New businesses, large and small, seem to pop up in Belize every day … and nearly just as many seem to disappear shortly after. While there are many factors that influence the success or failure of a business venture, proper planning is perhaps the most important. Today a publication was launched that should give investors a solid start. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning the Belize Trade and Investment Service officially launched its first investment manual: a how-to-guide designed to cut down on frustration by providing investors with step-by-step instructions.

Lourdes Smith, Chair, BELTRAIDE
“Many times people start a business without even doing a business plan. If you do a proper business plan, you will what capital you need to invest in your business, how much money you’ll need to keep you going until you start generating revenue, because you might have production or construction that needs to take place.”

“It’s not difficult to do. We have developed a brochure that tells you how to do a marketing plan or a business plan and BELTRAIDE is there to assist you with that process. If you do that, if you do your groundwork, you have a higher chance of being successful and a higher chance of being less frustrated in starting your business. What the manual will do is tell you how to go about doing it so that you don’t do step ten before step two.”

According to Belgrade’s Chair, Lourdes Smith, the book will answer frequently asked questions.

Lourdes Smith
“It’s not that we don’t want them to keep calling BELTRAIDE, but there’s so many of them that call. We get a lot of emails on a daily basis, we get about twenty e-mail queries from at home and abroad, from students, from Belizeans wanting to repatriate, from foreigner investors who have read about us.”

“In addition to the text, the book also outlines a diagram, like a flow chart that will show you these are steps, the sequence of steps that you have to take. Let’s say if you need an Environmental Impact Assessment done, then this is what you have to do, if you don’t need one, well then you go this route, so it’s laid out.”

Janelle Chanona
“It’s user friendly.”

Lourdes Smith
“It’s user friendly and laid out in a diagram, it is also explained in the text.”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Ladies and Gentlemen, our economy is open … for business. There is respect for the rule of law. With an impressive program of physical and economic infrastructure, carried out in recent years, supported by heavy investment in human resources in education and skills training, Belize is ready.”

According to the policy makers, Belize is promoting Agriculture and Agribusiness, Aquaculture, Environmental Goods and Services, Information Communications Technology, and Tourism as the country’s top five investment options. The sales pitch is aimed at genuine foreign investors…

Lourdes Smith
“Meaning that they are coming here to invest foreign dollars to generate products that are of export quality that can earn foreign exchange for Belize.”

…and local entrepreneurs interested in developing new activities and products.

Lourdes Smith
“Domestic investors or should I say Belizeans or people living in Belize are encouraged to reinvest monies into Belize to keep the economy going.”

It took BELTRAIDE employees fifteen months to compile the investment manual. The electronic version of the guide includes more than one hundred pages of additional information like business contacts and national statistics. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of the investment manual can contact BELTRAIDE in Belmopan at phone number 822-3737. While electronic versions of the guide are free, the printed manuals do carry a charge.