Musa, regional heads fight economic crisis

Prime Minister Said Musa returned over the weekend from St. Lucia, where CARICOM Heads of Government met at a special summit to deal with the economic crisis now threatening the region. That crisis has its roots in a drastic drop in tourist arrivals since September eleventh, the concurrent slowdown in the world economy and a broad decline in the price of commodities produced by the Caribbean. In response, the Heads of Government have established a plan called the “Framework for Stabilising and Transforming Caribbean Economies.” In the short run the programme will provide immediate assistance to Dominica, the hardest hit economy, in order to prevent its collapse. A regional fund and technical advisory team will also be created to assist countries having financial problems. The third phase of the plan will involved the transformation of national economies, including proposals to revitalise the productive sector and promote fiscal reform by governments. On a bilateral level the Belize delegation, which included Minister Ralph Fonseca and Ambassador Eamon Courtenay, held meetings with Jamaica’s P.J. Patterson and Owen Arthur of Barbados. Subjects included Belize’s efforts to sell our citrus products in the region and to house the headquarters of the CARICOM Climate Change Centre. The summit also approved Belize’s request to negotiate a free trade agreement with Guatemala. While Belize’s economy is taking its share of the regional battering, we are considered to be in far better long term shape than most nations in the region, whose economies are overly dependent on tourism and offshore financial services. Over the last fifteen years the Belizean economy has been transformed from one of the least diversified, depending largely on sugar, to one of the most diversified, with a wide base of agricultural and seafood exports, along with a vibrant multi-faceted tourism industry.