P.M. Briceño Attends European Development Days Forum in Belgium

Prime Minister John Briceño is in Brussels, Belgium for the Fifteenth European Development Days Forum. His address to the dignitaries in attendance focused on the European Union’s contributions to Belize that have helped with rural transformation projects through small and micro-enterprise infrastructure and renewable energy. The European Development Days is Europe’s leading forum on international partnerships. It is meant to bring ideas and experiences together to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges.  Here is Prime Minister John Briceño.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We meet in beautiful Brussels at a decisive moment. Not only is the world in the recovery stages of the global pandemic. We are also witnessing a catastrophic invasion by Russia of Ukraine, whose impact has spread far beyond their borders, indeed far beyond this continent. Today, our small nations in the Caribbean, including Belize, are grappling with high inflation rates, unsustainable debt, increasing poverty, food and energy security, and climate change, among other major external factors hindering the development of our nations. For example, in Belize when my administration took office in November 2020, Belize debt to GDP ratio stood at an alarming hundred and thirty three percent, unemployment stood at thirty p[percent, and the poverty rate was estimated at around sixty percent. Immediately my government proceeded with a multi- year recovery and transformational framework called Plan Belize.  This set the foundation for our medium term development strategy, which allowed us to establish macro-economic order and stimulate investments in several key sectors over the next five years. This transaction alone decreased debt to GDP by an estimated twelve percent, set aside almost four million dollars annually for marine conservation and set up a marine conservation trust fund that will be worth almost one hundred million dollars by 2040.”