Central Bank says no scarcity of U.S. Currency

And while the B.D.F. is comfortable with gifts from Uncle Sam, locally the cash flow is also not doing so badly after the big interest payment on the super bond. Only three weeks ago Belize had to pay twenty-three million dollars, bringing the total paid this year to forty-five million. In 2010 payment will increase to around sixty-five million, and each year it goes up. Just how we will meet those payments from year to year is yet to be seen. The loan will not expire until 2029. News Five spoke today with Director of Research at the Central Bank, Azucena Novelo, who said she was not aware of there being any scarcity of US currency. She added that the level of the US cash is higher now than the same time last year. When comparing the commercial banks’ net foreign assets for January to June of last year, Novelo says preliminary records for that same period this year looked better. But where remittances are concerned, Novelo says that figure is down by eight million dollars or ten point eight percent over last year.