Belize is an importing nation, but, now we will have a national export strategy. For the third time in a year and a half BELTRAIDE has brought together stakeholders in the processing and export areas of the economy. This third and final symposium will deliver the culminating document, the National Export Strategy. Lourdes Smith is the Executive Director of BELTRAIDE. She explains that the consultations had been scheduled for 9 months but the timeline was expanded to cover all areas.
Lourdes Smith,
"We have identified five priority sectors that we will focus the export strategy on and those are tourism, agro-processing, environmental good and services, information and communication technology, and aquaculture and fisheries. For practical purposes it will help us map out a plan as to how we are going to strengthen our private sector, the micro-small and medium enterprises that can feed into the supply chain. Belize needs to export products so that we can generate foreign exchange and balance our payments. So in order to be able to export, we have to be competitive. How can you be competitive? By making sure that the products that you have identified are competitive out there if certain things are in place. This document will form part of the Vision 2025 so it is a national development plan and so it is going to incorporated in there or inculcated in that plan. So it will have the support of the government. Now how it can be used further will be through policies that are developed, that will support it. We are thriving to get our packaging material in at a lower cost so that we can compete, things like that. We have to have a high quality product so that we are competitive internationally."
The National Export Strategy will form part of government's larger economic development strategy, the vaunted Vision 2025. It should be ready for presentation by the end of January of next year.
