PM Briceno Signs Cooperation Agreement with South Korea

A historical cooperation framework agreement has been entered into between Belize and the Republic of Korea. The agreement promotes poverty reduction and sustainable economic, trade and investment, as well as social development of Belize through grant aid from the Republic of Korea. On August first, Prime Minister John Briceño led a delegation to Seoul where he met with President Yoon Suk Yeol and his government.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“The Koreans presently have the tenth largest economy in the world and as the president pointed out to me, seventy years ago, they did not have enough paper for the children to go to school.  They believe that they managed to develop their country because they had many countries assisting, now that they are at a point in development, they believe that they should be able to help our developing countries.  They have this special fund, the EDCF, the Economic Development Cooperation Fund, of which developing countries can access funding at 0.01% to be paid over thirty years and in many instances a part of that fund or that loan is even a grant.  But Belize, unfortunately, we are considered a middle income country based on GDP and we have to be making the case that we are not a middle income country because we have, whilst our GDP is fairly high compared to other countries, it’s only four hundred thousand of us but we are in a big country.  So I told them, imagine Barbados in one of our islands, Ambergris Caye, with one hundred miles of paved road you cover the entire country, we don’t.  We need clinics, we need bridges, we need farm roads, we need schools, you know, we need hospitals.  So it is very costly for Belize to put the necessary infrastructure that we want to provide for our people.  And the president agreed with Belize, with us, and so he instructed immediately that they should allow Belize now to have access these funds.”