Economy Grew Over Last Ten Months

Belize’s economy grew in the first ten months of this year, compared to the same period of 2020. That has been the line that the government has been sticking to since it took austerity measures to salvage what was left of the economy as a result of COVID and what it dubbed as reckless spending by its predecessor. Today the Statistical Institute of Belize supported the government’s position on the growth of the economy. Statistician, Christopher Hulse, pointed out however, that while there was growth, we’re still not where we were prior to the COVID onslaught.

Christopher Hulse, Statistician, SIB

Christopher Hulse

“To determine the country’s GDP, we studied the country’s three productive sectors of the economy: the primary sector, which includes raw materials that can be processed into a finished good, so for example, the products we get from agriculture, fisheries and forestry; the secondary sector, which takes these raw materials produced by the primary sector and process them into manufactured goods, so for example, from sugar cane we process sugar, soft drinks, and from citrus we have like orange concentrate. And finally, the tertiary sector, instead of goods, it is the production of services – instead of the end product. So for example, hotels provide an accommodation service; schools provide educational services. For most of 2020, the global economy was distorted in 2019. In Belize we had four quarters of decreased production up to the first quarter of this year. We now have two consecutive quarters where we see production approaching levels prior to 2020. However I want us to observe that the level of GDP for 2021 for quarter three is still lower than the pre-pandemic levels. That’s the emphasis – that even though we see an increase of fifteen point two percent, the level is still not where it was before we were hit with the restrictions from COVID-19. We can now look at each sector contributed to this fifteen point two percent growth the tertiary sector continues to have the highest contribution, accounting for more than half of GDP growth for the third quarter even when it was affected by COVID-19 during the 2020 to 2021 years. It has a total value added of three hundred and ninety point three million dollars out of the six hundred and forty-nine point seven million dollars that I stated earlier, which is approximately sixty point one percent of the GDP.”