Prime minister indicates Belize Bank loans not a concern

dean barrow

It has been reported that nine different corporations owe the Belize Bank over four hundred and fifty million dollars in a loan portfolio of six hundred and eighty million dollars. According to the governor of the Central Bank, Glenford Ysaguirre, in a recent court affidavit, at least twenty-eight percent of the bank’s loans are non-performing.  That’s about two hundred million dollars that is owed to the bank.  The statement from the Central Bank governor has received a lot of attention in the pro-government media.  While in Belmopan today, News Five got a comment from Prime Minister Dean Barrow who said today that he is aware of the situation but since Belize Bank is the country’s largest financial institution, he is not worried about its ability to control the situation.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“It’s a matter for some concern but I don’t think it’s a matter for panic. In my view the Belize Bank is entirely capable of dealing with the issue when you look at the whole picture. In any event, I take the point that it is really a matter for the bank and the Central Bank of Belize as the regulatory agency to work through. But I certainly would not want the fact of the ratio of non-performing loans to result in any sense of panic. I don’t think that—that would hurt the bank—and I don’t think that it would be in the interest of any of us for that to happen. The Belize Bank does remain the largest bank in the country and I repeat that I think that they can come out of this difficulty. So while the Central Bank is perfectly in order to seek to discharge its regulatory function as guardian of the public interest where banking is concerned, I don’t believe we should make too much of this particular difficulty.”

Reports to News Five are that the Bank will be meeting in the upcoming days with the Central Bank of Belize about how to control the debt.