Mexican Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Says Belize/Mexico Border Is Stable

On Sunday a high-level delegation from Mexico’s Foreign Ministry visited Belize. That delegation included Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade and his Vice-Minister Vanessa Rubio. As far as diplomatic visits go this one was relatively low key. But there were discussions on critical matters including bi-lateral agreements in trade and other areas. Those discussions were held with Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington. But even before that, the group headed out to the border on a fact-finding mission. Today Mexican Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Vanessa Rubio told News Five that the border is stable, but there is much work to be done on both sides to strengthen it.

Via phone: Vanessa Rubio, Vice-Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico

Vanessa Rubio

“We went to the cross in Chactemal and Subteniente Lopez to see how the new installations are working in terms of customs, in terms of migration, in terms of sanitary authorities. Then after that we made a trip by helicopter throughout the border to the monument 107 which is where the border between Mexico and Belize finishes at the south part. We were very glad to see that we have a very stable border, one that indeed needs some strengthening of infrastructure and some promotion of economic development on both sides of the border but still one that functions relatively well. Really what we want to do is to have a prosperous and secure border and in terms of prosperity what we need to look into is to make sure that the communities on both sides of the border have the opportunities and the infrastructure to grow and to create jobs and to be a part of the local and regional economy so that is something that we’ll be working on. And in terms of security we need two things – (1) the proper infrastructure, physical infrastructure in terms of formal crossings, and (2) a good deal of information sharing throughout the proper security institutions and joint operations to combat counterfeiting and drug trafficking.”