Central Bank Reserves at “Comfortable Level”

Kareem Michael

Earlier this month, the Briceño Administration announced that the government would acquire and modernize the commercial port in Belize City. The settlement not only resolves all remaining Ashcroft judgment awards against Belize at a reduced cost, but also mandates the withdrawal of all litigation initiated by Ashcroft companies against the government. The Port Acquisition & Settlement Deeds Act 2023 authorized the purchase of the Port and adjoining lands for eighty three point three-seven million US dollars, along with an appropriation of fifteen point three million US dollars to settle outstanding judgment awards. The final settlement represents a sixty-four percent discount compared to the initial compensation demands.  And those monies have been paid from the Central Bank reserves. Today, the bank’s governor, Kareem Michael, confirmed that the payment had been made from the bank’s reserves.

Kareem Michael, Governor, Central Bank of Belize

“So they’re definitely taken from reserves. We had a good level, a comfortable level of reserves. We were over a billion. It, it did create some issue with how those reserves were placed. So the Central Bank has a relatively adequate, suitable, sophisticated investment reserves policy. So we had to move around money to make sure that it was paid within the requested deadline, but we’re fine. Reserves are still above four months of import coverage and under the billion dollar mark, but not too far below billion dollars.”