Belmopan seeking $100 million in RBTT financing

Once President Chen was airborne, Prime Minister Musa’s thoughts were no doubt free to return to the matters that were on his plate before the interlude of the state visit. That is, the nation’s finances. And tonight there are signs that his government is making some progress in its bid for some new injections of cash. Sources in Belmopan indicate that negotiations are proceeding with the Trinidadian bank, RBTT, for a large financing bond to take up some of the slack caused by the recent withdrawal of Belize’s two hundred and twenty-five million U.S. dollar offering on the international market. Unconfirmed reports put the new loan at one million U.S. dollars, sixty-five of which will go to refinance existing debt and thirty-five for new capital projects. Terms are said to be in the neighbourhood of ten years at ten percent.

The RBTT is Trinidad and Tobago’s biggest bank and is believed to be the largest indigenously owned financial institution in the Caribbean. With plenty of liquidity from Trinidad’s booming petroleum driven economy, the publically traded bank has been an aggressive lender to a number of Caribbean governments.