PM Outlines Economic Accomplishments

John Briceño

P.M. Briceño says Belize has a lot to be grateful for with the economy rebounding, the Blue Bond, and now the Millennium Challenge Corporation funds. He maintains there is more to be done in terms of employment and other opportunities.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Just imagine, in one year we paid off the Super Bond, we saved five hundred million dollars for the Belizean people, we set up the Blue Bond, and from that Blue Bond we are setting up a permanent trust fund for marine conservation that by 2040 will be at two hundred million dollars. We signed a contract with the Millennium Challenge Corporation that we will be able to get grant money, free money, anywhere between two hundred and fifty million U.S. to five hundred million U.S. We may get a little less than the two hundred and fifty million U.S. we don’t know, because the population is small. It is just about four hundred and thirty thousand. So, that is a lot that we have accomplished in one year. But, it is not enough. We have a lot more to go. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Employment, we created twenty-five thousand jobs in that one year. So, unemployment fell from as high as thirty percent to about ten percent. These are not my numbers; these are numbers from the S.I.B.”