BELTRAIDE launches plan of action
It’s no secret that Belize owes a lot of money: over a billion U.S. dollars give or take a few million. And while the recent debt restructuring will give us a few years to put our financial house in order, the only way to repay those greenbacks is to earn more or spend less, preferably both. How will we do it? Today, the government body responsible for investment promotion unveiled its plans. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
According to financial experts, one of the greatest challenges facing Belize’s small open economy is a significant trade deficit, meaning as a country we import much more than we export; four hundred and seventy five million dollars more in 2005. The Belize Trade and Investment Development Service, BELTRAIDE, is the main government agency that’s trying to correct the imbalance. This morning BELTRIADE launched its annual action plan at the Belize City House of Culture.
Right now it takes forty to forty-five days for an investor to set up a business in Belize. But if Executive Director Lourdes Smith has her way, in 2007 BELTRAIDE will cut down that time and the many accompanying hassles.
Lourdes Smith, Executive Director, BELTRAIDE
“As a service, as a one stop shop service, what we want to be able to do is that you come to BELTRAIDE with all your information, fill out the necessary form, you pay one fee, and then we will–within twenty-four hours, that’s my target, maybe it will be two days–but within twenty-four hours, be able to provide you with your trade license, you’ve been registered with Social Security, you’ve been registered with the Business Tax, with the G.S.T. and all of that, and so you’re set to open your doors and do business as a legal business.”
Mark Espat, Minister of Investment
“Making business happen is not the exclusive prevue of BELTRAIDE. Indeed like so many other things like education, raising our children, promoting tourism, crime and violence, so many national issues, attracting foreign direct investment is a job for all of us in the private sector, for all branches of government, for all us in the social partnership. If we are to create the right environment for attracting investment and continuing to grow the Belizean economy in an equitable way, then making business happen is a task for all of us.”
And while foreign investment is important, Smith says this year BELTRAIDE will also seek to coordinate supply and demand through a Domestic Market Information System.
Lourdes Smith
“To be able to know what the demand for certain products are throughout the year and then in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, to work with the farmers and like that so that they know how much has to be produced for local consumption. Other than that, it would mean we would be producing for export or for agro-processing, which is the other way we are trying to attract investment so that processing plants can be established in Belize.”
In the coming year, BELTRAIDE is also hoping to receive funding from the Inter-American Development Bank for a project that would link local micro, small, and medium producers with exporters to minimise waste.
Lourdes Smith
“What we are doing is creating the linkages and doing the coordination, teaching them how to negotiate their little contracts with the people that would be buying their product and thereby they would growing, but it would be for the export market, while you have others that would be growing for the domestic market.”
“A lot of people think BELTRAIDE is to facilitate the foreign investment only and actually the foreign investment is the smaller portion of what we spend our time doing, we deal mostly with the Belizean or national business persons.”
This morning BELTRAIDE also announced their five year strategic plan which includes the construction of the agency’s headquarters in Belmopan, to be called the Belize Trade Centre. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
Final trade figures for 2006 are not in yet, but based on increased exports, led by citrus, the trade gap will likely show a modest decrease. It should be noted that neither tourism receipts, remittances from abroad, nor income from the illegal drug business are included in the annual trade figures. It is the money from these activities that provide the funds to purchase all those excess imports.
