Inflation has hit record highs, the cost of staple foods has skyrocketed and spending has contracted – that’s what recent survey by the Statistical Institute of Belize has shown. But now there’s some good news from the S-I-B. The latest information shows that the GDP has shown strong third-quarter growth as much as 8.2%. That puts growth for the first nine months of 2008 at a robust 5.3% - the highest since 2003 – which was the last year of the PUP’s boom.
Leading the growth was electricity production which zoomed up by 50% and oil production which went up by thirty-three percent or three-hundred and seventy-six thousand barrels. Wholesale and retails trade also went up by 10.3%.
But the bad news is that the all important construction sector continued to decline by 3.2% while fishing plummeted by almost one-fifth, or 18%.
