But while we may see that uptick, Chetumal is embracing the news of the surge of Belizeans who will be crossing the border. Before the pandemic, roughly 30,000 Belizeans crossed the border every month. And since there was no shopping at Plazas Las Americas or Sam's, Chetumal's economy has seen a major decline, with business owners begging for borders to reopen. But even when they do in 16 days, Belizeans are still wary about the pandemic and being stuck at the border if they get infected over on the other side. But today the Belizean Ambassador to Mexico, Oscar Arnold, explained that in Othon P Blanco, Quintana Roo, where Chetumal is located, the COVID situation isn't much different than here in Belize:
H.E Oscar Arnold - Belize Ambassador to Mexico
"To date they have recovered about 10,500 total cases in that municipality with about 504 deaths, so not too much dissimilar from what we saw in Belize, when it comes to the number of deaths we're hovering right under 600, in total in Mexico the entire country, 136 million doses of vaccines have been issued with 66 million people from the population being fully vaccinated and another 14 million having at least one vaccination, they have started the booster shots with the persons in the population who are 60 and older because they found their 2 case of omnicron here in Mexico and so now they are doing their booster shots. Their vaccination program should run up to March 2022 when I think they will have the number of vaccinated people in they country where they want, so the opening of the border in January is coming at a time when we see cases both in Belize and Mexico on a downward trend, so that's pretty good. The benefit for both countries obviously we've heard the cries of the business men in Chetumal, I think businesses there have also shuttered their doors and had to close down and so the injection of some people going across the border to the Chetumal side to shop will obviously be a welcome thing for them and so obviously they stand to benefit from that. On our side of the border we may see an uptick in a volume of people may go across to the free zone, so that may increase as well, we know that we saw the numbers increase when we actually opened the free zone earlier this year and we saw the amount of jobs that it impacted and the amount of businesses that reopened, we actually saw their number of sales increase. So I think that there will be some benefits to both sides."
But if Belizeans start buying their basic necessities down to the toilet paper they use in Mexico, then that means there's less money to rebuild Belize's economy. And while tourism is booming, we have seen the importance of keeping our money at home. We asked Ambassador Arnold if he feels that this border reopening will negatively impact our fragile and rebounding economy:
H.E Oscar Arnold
"That is always a concern and to be honest with you, where the economy is now is far better than where it was a year ago and that is always a concern but Belizeans have always been resilient, I've seen the number of online businesses and people providing their services online grow. I was trying to get some numbers to look at what amount of that went to online sales through Amazon and that sort of thing. So while there was an amount of money that was spent at home, I know that in tourism industry for example when they gave deals or half off or specials to Belizeans that was able to hold them over until the entire tourist industry was open and there will be some flight of spending from the Belizean economy but I also believe that it invites an amount of spending to come into Belize as well. Suppliers might find it a little bit easier to source items across the border in Mexico that they currently can't find on the shelves. I know that the shipping industry is going through it's own set of problems and the log that it takes for our good to arrive to shore has been increases, so that may impact suppliers in Belize where they will be able to easier source items across the border."
