CARICOM leaders hopeful after talks with U.S.

In political news, Prime Minister Said Musa returned to Belize on Thursday following meetings between the Caribbean heads of Government and President of United States George Bush and his government’s top executives. This morning the P.M. told the media he hopes the sessions will have positive results for the region.

Prime Minister Said Musa
“What we are hoping to achieve and what we have been promised is that the Caribbean Basin Initiative will be renewed by the President with the support of the Congress. We are hoping that will be done before the end of this year because as you know, that too comes to an end in 2008. Of course in the case of Belize, that will be a great benefit to us to be able to maintain that in the case of our citrus in particular, sugar, papayas and all the other products. We also got a commitment, and this in important, to extend C.B.I. to include services and in the case of Belize where we are promoting tourism and financial services, that too is very important because North America happens to be the major market for our country.”

“It is a duty free access for various products, the limitation of C.B.I., is that it doesn’t include all products or services for that matter. But yes you are right, it’s not really a 21st Century type of trade agreement that we eventually want, but we have to work towards that.”