Cabinet move should help local music
Almost missed in yesterday’s report from Cabinet was a decision that should make Belizean music more accessible on the local market. Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The exemption of duty on locally produced CDs and cassettes has been well received by the United Belizean Artists Association. U.B.A.A.’s President, Jason Guerrero says musicians and producers were paying up to ninety percent duty on materials they produced abroad and then brought back home and sold. Guerrero says the high costs limited production and public access to local music.
Jason Guerrero, President, U.B.A.A.
“It’s a very good day that Cabinet has now decided to exempt these duties because what that does is to allow producers to bring in more copies of their locally produced material and market more copies.”
However, Cabinet’s ruling does not guarantee that record stores will be stocked with local music. Producers will have to do their own marketing to ensure that the local releases are being sold at record outlets. And it’s no secret that these record stores have been pirating both local and foreign music, thus undercutting the price of legitimate releases. While Cabinet has moved to increase the duty on blank discs, one music merchant believes that however noble government’s intention, the blanks are still so cheap that the move won’t stop piracy.
Leopoldo Silva, Owner, Venus Photo and Records
“Pirating is a problem that is world-wide. I mean you go to Chetumal and you see. You go to the U.S. to New York, Miami, Guatemala, anywhere you go people do it at their own risk of course because I guess it is illegal.
If the duties were taken off the imported CD’s, of course that would make a big difference. Import duty is somewhere like seventy-five percent and then Belize being such a small country we don’t import large quantities. So it’s so expensive for Belizeans to buy imported music, and that will encourage the pirating; at least it won’t discouraged it.”
Guerrero says because not all recordings are produced outside of the country, U.B.A.A. would like to see local producers and musicians exempted from paying duty on imported blank CDs.
Jason Guerrero
“Many studios are now purchasing all the equipment to do full in house production. That is from the recording of the music to the packaging of the music, the entire packaging, everything and the distribution of the music.”
It is not known how much the duty increase on imported blank CDs will be as that matter still needs to be formalised with customs. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
According to Cabinet Secretary Robert Leslie, local producers and musicians are invited to voice whatever concerns they have on the recent decisions made by Cabinet.
