The BELTRAIDE Office exists to attract investors, and get things moving along once the investors are here. And now, they've got a handbook to help things along. Call it a thousand and one things every investor needs to know; it's the investor's manual and it took 15 months to prepare. It tells investors just about everything they need to know, short of where to buy the best tacos. Chairman of BELTRAIDE Lourdes Smith told us why it's important.
Lourdes Smith, BELTRAIDE Chairman
"So that anybody wanting to start a business in Belize knows the exact steps, what is involved in establishing a business so that they don't go turning around and revisiting departments, getting frustrated and so that they are able or aware of all the facilities or infrastructure that is available in the country of Belize."
Jules Vasquez,
Has there been an outcry for something like this?
Lourdes Smith,
"Well you always hear people getting frustrated because they have to go back to some office because they didn't do this or why did they have to do that, why did I have to get an environmental clearance. Well if they had a manual like this at the time that tells them that they need to do an environmental clearance for their type of project, they would have done it and not be frustrated to find out that they can't move ahead until they do the environmental clearance when they could have been doing it three months ago. They don't know that you have to do step three before step four and they might want to do step four after step one."
Jules Vasquez,
Chaos ensues.
Lourdes Smith,
"Right and frustration and then they say it is so hard to do business in Belize but if you know how to do it and if you know the sequence of steps that you have to take, then it is much easier to do business in Belize."
Jules Vasquez,
Now a critic would say that yes it tells you how to do things the right way but it doesn't tell you how to do things the real way and the wheels of progress are greased with cash with actual incentives, a lil $50, a lil $100. There is no mention of that.
Lourdes Smith,
"I don't work that way."
Jules Vasquez,
But the real system works that way.
Lourdes Smith,
"Well we're trying to move away from that right Jules."
Jules Vasquez,
We should be.
Lourdes Smith,
"So if you have this and you say this is the procedure and you do it in a timely fashion like that. But if you do it, if you plan your work and you play your deadlines with time you won't have to be faced with a situation like that. You just wait your turn and you will get it in due time and within in your planned framework."
The handbook and the accompanying CD version will be circulated to Embassies. It's also available online and you can click here.
