Investment Summit Planned for November
On Tuesday evening, C.E.O. in the Ministry of Economic Development, Doctor Osmond Martinez indicated on News Five how well Belize’s economy has started to rebound while still facing a pandemic that continues to impact more people daily. But while Belize has done even better than what the IMF prescription had called for and projected, Belize needs to generate more finances to accelerate our way back out of recession. Today at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza Hotel, the Ministry of Finance presented a plan that it hopes to launch in November to do just that. Marion Ali reports.
Marion Ai, Reporting
Nine months after it took office, the John Briceno administration is embarking on a strategic approach that they feel will attract the kinds of investment that can restore Belize’s economic health. And the plan entails introducing Belize’s First National Investment Summit. It bears the theme Belize: Open for Business. And a part of that strategy is to reduce the amount of bureaucratic procedures investors have to go through before actually being able to establish a business in Belize.
Chris Coye, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, Economic Development, Investment
“We can’t have a system of bureaucracy where the likely response is a “no” rather than a “yes.” We have to look at how we foster, how we facilitate activity, economic activity. And to do that, we have to first show that yes, Belize is open for business.”
Opening up to foreign investment is also expected to improve the current unemployment rate – another key component in resuscitating Belize’s fragile economy. Accompanying these steps were the tough decisions that Government has had to take, says Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment, Chris Coye. But now, the fruits of those decisions are already beginning to bear, starting the beginning of the second quarter this year.
Chris Coye
“We are pleased to say that in that second quarter, led by agriculture and not far behind by tourism, we have been able to experience an economic growth of over 20%, more specifically around 22%. So our turn-around has been rapid. We as an economy are roaring back. The first six months of this year now, we have grown over six percent.”
Coye said that the Government’s recovery plan has been even outdone the IMF prescription.
Chris Coye
“Now the IMF in our conversations, in their staff report, in their projections projected less than two percent growth for the Belizean economy for 2021. We’ve already tripled that amount.”
But in addition to the cutbacks, the efforts Belize makes in attracting investment is the other part of the economic equation. Our ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index nears the very bottom. It is a status that the Government wants to change, Coye said. He highlighted some of the steps being taken to divert much-needed dollars to our shores.
Chris Coye
“Some of those areas include trade license reform. I believe that was just recently approved, and that has the support of the business sector; stamp duty reform; exchange control reform; and lands reform. We are at present looking at modernizing the companies’ registry and our companies’ law. Starting a business can take an average of roughly six weeks and the cost of starting a business in Belize is almost prohibitively expensive.”
But while the plan is to open up for business, how do we filter out the undesirables who are equally appreciative of this initiative?
Lincoln Blake, Director, Investment Policy and Compliance Unit
“When an application comes in, or even when there’s an engagement between Government and a private entity, the due diligence checks on the shareholders – sometimes to actually sift through all the network of operations that exist and shareholder on top of shareholder to actually get to the natural owner of a company, but it’s done. It’s a complex issue; it requires specific skills and sometimes coordination with other international authorities because it’s done mostly with international investors. But there is that check through INTERPOL and also the Financial Intelligence Unit.”
As part of the broad-based approach to welcome new business to shore, Prime Minister Briceno is scheduled to visit Mexico next month, where he is expected to promote the initiative. Reporting for News Five, I am Marion Ali.
