15 Sep Interview with Hon. John Antonio, Briceño Prime Minister, Belize
Given Belize’s positive economic trajectory, could you outline your strategic vision and key priorities for the medium term?
Belize, like most small states, continues to have challenges and certainly the issue of climate change comes straight at us and creates certain challenges that no one expected and in many instances, doesn’t know how to deal with. We have to ensure that we can continue to grow the economy sustainably. We can no longer do agriculture the way we did it 10-20 years ago. It has to be resilient agriculture, that takes into consideration patterns of change and we need to use science and technology.
We’ve been having a lot of success over the last three years. Now we’re exporting cattle, and we are going into new products like coconut and shrimp that we are starting to export. We’re looking at opening markets in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. We’re about to sign a trade agreement with El Salvador and Guatemala and we’re working with Mexico. Geographically, we need to be realistic. The future of Belize is centered around Central America. We have long historical ties with the Caribbean and are considered part of the Caribbean but we need to be realistic; we have millions of Spanish-speaking people right across and you could walk across the border if you want to take your goods to sell, whereas if you wanted to sell in Jamaica, you have to go to Miami first before connecting.
Regarding tourism we have unique features in Belize that you can’t find elsewhere in the world. We’re the size of the state of Massachusetts with 400,000 people. We are still at a time in our development where we can protect what makes us unique, protect the environment, protect the barrier reef and ensure that we can protect our marine reserves and protect areas on land, our archaeological sites. These are what makes us unique. You could go to a shopping mall anywhere in the world, but you can’t go to a barrier reef anywhere in the world. In the Western hemisphere. There are four atolls in the western hemisphere and Belize has three of them and it’s spectacularly beautiful. We need to take advantage of what we have, we need to be able to use it to create opportunities for regions and to create jobs, but at the same time, we have to use it sustainably.
How have your promotional efforts been helped by the blue bonds?
What’s innovative about the Blue Bond is that, because of it, we have set up certain targets we want to meet. The most important one is that we had the 30 by 30 initiative, led by the UN. We agreed that by 2030, we will be protecting 30% of all marine space and we have now determined that we will do that by 2026. We have started a trust fund for marine conservation. We did about $23 million, and by 2040, we expect to be at $100 million. A portion of the interest payments that we make every year go to marine conservation in Belize. The fisheries department and the Coastal Zone Institute can get some of the funding, but also a portion of it is made available for community-based organizations that live in the coastal areas and the islands so that they could use that money to be able to do small projects. For instance, there’s a group of women in Placencia planting seaweed, so we make funding to help them so they could find ways where they could have a sustainable income or sustainable way of living. We work with the fish folks and teach them to see that we don’t need to fish everything today because then tomorrow we have none. We have paid off existing, unsustainable government loans and come up with another loan that is more sustainable and more affordable, but at the same time be able to help us to do more marine conservation.
What are your government’s key economic drivers?
Tourism continues to be the key driver in the economy at this time. We’ve had tremendous growth because of the diversity. You could be at the Blue Hole scuba diving, or be at the barrier reef snorkeling, then jump on a plane and be at one of our reserves, or be at an archeological site, or be in one of the forest reserves that we have, or caving, you just name it, you can do all of that.
Call centers have started to come to Belize and it has had an explosive growth. When we got into government, about 2000 people were working in the call centers. Right now, we’re almost at 15,000. For a small economy, that’s tremendous growth. To me what’s even more exciting is that many of these kids don’t have to leave home, they can work from home. Technology has also created these opportunities. That is why we continue to work closely with the telephone companies, Belize Telemedia (BTL) and Smart Speednet, to ensure that they can provide the necessary technology to easily connect Belize through fiber. That has created so many opportunities and growth has been so fast. We’ve almost become a victim of our success because right now we’re having some challenges with electricity, which should be addressed by the end of the month. We buy about 40% of our electricity from Mexico. With very little notice the Comisión Federal de Electricidad said they had to decrease their supply to us. They’re having problems in Quintana Roo peninsula struggling
to keep up with their country’s demands. What has happened to Belize is that the Belize Electricity Company has projections and today we are using what we’re projecting to use in 2028. We’re about four years ahead because of the tremendous growth in the tourist sector, in agriculture, in the service sector. Then we’ve been having these heat waves that we did not have before.
By concentrating on growing the economy, we have managed to reduce the unemployment rate to about 3.4 percent, something that we’ve never had before. One of the targets of my government was that, within 10 years, we wanted to reduce poverty by 50 percent. The poverty rate was about 52 percent when we got into government and presently, it’s about 34 percent. We did that by growing the economy, having people working and raising the minimum wage to $2.50 per hour. That means that about 35,000 people’s salary was raised immediately. I remember when having that discussion, the Chamber of Commerce said the economy couldn’t afford it, people are going to be sent home, we need to do our study and we need to do it in phases. That was last year. Nobody lost their jobs, and salaries went up.
What are the main focus areas of collaboration between your government and your US peers and what role do you see American partners play in your vision for the country?
Americans are our largest investors in Belize and most of them come and invest in the tourism industry. The U.S. continues to be our closest and strongest ally. We collaborate on many issues; narco-trafficking, security, peace in the region. If you look at the region here, presently, in Central America, Belize is one of the bastions of democracy. All these other countries are having problems. Guatemala is a mess because the President does not have a political party, so Congress stops everything. El Salvador has had some successes but you could question the democracy available. Honduras, Nicaragua, even Costa Rica and Panama have been having some problems. Here in Belize, you have a country that abides by the rule of law and respects elections. You have an election today and the party that wins takes over the next day. When I won on November 11, 2020, the following day by 11:00 I took office. That was a Thursday and by Monday, we could work. There’s a strong sense of democracy and freedoms such as freedom of the press.
The U.S. has been a good partner. They have the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a private organization but funded by the U.S. government, which provides time-limited grants. They partner with countries worldwide to promote economic growth. They look at certain criteria to fund programs designed to create an enabling environment for private sector investment, in countries with a rule of law, democracy and freedoms. One year after we came onboard, they saw what we were doing and decided to sign a compact with us. We said we need help in education and energy. We negotiated a compact of $125 million, of which 80% is for education and 20% for the energy sector. Now it is going to Congress and we hope that by August it’s going to be approved. The education project will focus on teacher training, curriculum, technology and how we can make our kids learn better and increase the availability of young people with the knowledge, skills and values relevant to labor market demands. The electricity project will focus on working on what we consider our battery bank. We’re investing in solar energy. We presently have a loan from Saudi Arabia to construct a 60 MW solar plant and we’re working with the World Bank to invest in battery energy storage.
Thanks to the compact with MCC, we’re going to be able to set up a battery bank with about 14 megawatts of energy. The US continues to be our closest partner and ally. Their citizens come to invest in Belize. They are also our major trading partner.
How is your government working to create socio-economic development and inclusive growth through tourism?
We’re open to investments but whenever anybody comes to invest, we also ask them to respect our laws, our customs and our people. We are very diverse people. There are a lot of intermarriages between different ethnic groups, it’s all one melting pot. That again makes us so unique. We are open, warm and friendly so whenever people want to come to invest in Belize, they meet with the Belize Tourism Board which explains to them what the options are and what they can do, they explain the laws. We are very strong when it comes to the environment; we walk them through the process. If they want to develop a small Island, we walk them through the application process, we have a very strong environmental impact assessment, an EIA process that has about 15 members, including members from the private sector, the government and the communities, so that everybody can ensure that the environment has been protected.
We can’t destroy what brings you here, we have to protect it. The government is prepared to give you certain development concessions for you to be able to succeed. We want you to succeed, we want you to make money. But at the same time, we want to make sure that you can work with our people and not treat our people like second-class citizens. That tourism then brings spin-off opportunities, whereby you buy meat, vegetables and flowers from our local producers and provide services for your guests, tour guides or tour operators and so forth. Those spin-off effects can create opportunities also for the Belizean people. By doing that, then you become part of the community, and once you become part of the community, it makes it so much easier to do business in Belize.
Belize held its second investment summit in 2023, during which the government welcomed investors from around the world. What are some of the main incentives your government is pursuing to attract foreign and local investors, particularly in new sectors?
Lots of governments make the mistake of saying we’re going to give you all these incentives for you to come and invest in a country, but investors are looking at more than that. They could get that in any country. What are some of the key elements that investors are looking for? One is a stable government and Belize has a very stable government. Two, a government that respects the law that you can take the government to court and feel that you’re going to get justice. Belize goes to court and if the government is wrong, the
court rules against us; there’s a sense of the rule of law. Contracts are sacred, you sign a contract and for one reason or the other, the party does not want to comply, you go to court. These are fundamentals for any long-term investments and Belize has that. People feel safe generally in Belize, that they can invest here and they don’t have to worry about the government wanting to take away their profits, or if they sign contracts with somebody else that they’ll be taking advantage, just because you’re not a citizen. That happens almost everyday outside of Belize, but that has not happened in Belize.
One of the things that we have to be grateful for is that we are a British colony. The British settled this strong system for the rule of law and the protection of citizens’ rights. Investors see that and once they do, they believe that it’s a safe place for them to invest. Then they look at what concessions you prepared. We provide development concessions and they are depending on the size of investments. Generally, what we’re doing is providing duty-free opportunities to bring in all of your equipment and materials and everything to be able to reduce the cost of building. In some instances, we give a tax holiday of maybe up to five years, not more than that, so that then you can get settled in and get your business going, and once it’s running properly, then you need also to help us by paying taxes. That is what we do and that has had tremendous success over the past three years.
Do you have a final message for the readers of Newsweek?
Many people have just heard about Belize. Once they hear about it, they get very excited about it. Come and visit. Take a look and see how diverse the country is in such a small area that you could see tremendous diversity in the landscape and in the people. Belize is a country of countless opportunities. We have friendly, open and welcoming people. These are the things that you look for when you want to come and invest. Belize provides many opportunities, in agriculture, especially as we continue to open new markets in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador; in the tourism sector, which everybody talks about, not only in the ocean but also inland with our jungle, with cave tubing, or looking at our archeological sites. There was a Maya empire at one time in Belize when the Mayans were at their height with about a million people living in Belize. The largest man-made structure was built by the Mayans.
We have a young population. We speak English and Spanish. We are in the same time zone as the largest economy in the world. Several flights are going to the U.S. every day. Belize is a full package in a small area with friendly, warm, welcoming people.
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