Today the Leader of the Opposition discussed leaked government documents which show how urgent Belize's debt re-profiling needs are. The UDP has circulated one of those documents called an economic and financial update. This is what government's debt management team will be presenting to creditors in meetings that should come up within the next few weeks.
On page 5 its says, "the latest projections indicate that Belize is facing considerable financing shortfalls...in 2006 and beyond." Later on the document discloses that Belize's available reserves are only US$43 million which doesn't even cover one month's worth of imports.
A table shows that regionally, Belize is in the worst economic condition in the region.
- First, the interest on public sector debt as a percentage of fiscal revenue is first to last, beating only Jamaica,
- The external debt is a percentage of GDP is 87.9%, way higher than the next closest which is Nicaragua at 61.3%, and the external debt
- Payments as a percentage of external receipts are 30% way below El Salvador.
All that leads to the tale of the financing requirements, the bottom line in all that pre-amble. The financing gap for 2006 is $34 million, and assuming the government gets money from the IADP and CDB, a total of US$25 million in September. In 2007, the financing gap is an all time high $162.8 million dollars, and it tapers off after that to a solid $91 million in 2008 and 2009, spiking back to $106 million in 2010.
Of course, this document is for creditors who Belize can't pay so for once instead of upbeat spin, government is painting the worse picture possible, though, in terms of the numbers it is accurate. It's left to be seen if a creditor's committee will be convinced by the presentation.
