And in other news about agriculture and trade, Eamon Courtenay, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Immigration recently met with Jose Mai, the Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise.
The two ministers and their respective teams sat down yesterday to discuss greater cooperation and collaboration between the two ministries. They want to further develop the country's agenda for trade and investment with Guatemala and Mexico.
There was a focus on the scope of the market access by Belize's private sector into Guatemala, and the expansion of the Partial Scope Agreement for trade. All considerations such as interest, constraints, and concerns were discussed about the formalization of bilateral trade and investment between Belize and Mexico. The discussions also included the state of Belize's export competitiveness covering production capacity for key exports, the import requirements to be met by local producers for export to Guatemala and Mexico, the companies currently capable of producing for export to these markets, the role of trade (market) intelligence in entering export markets, and the mobilization of resources for trade development.
It was agreed that the group will meet on a quarterly basis going forward.
