Last Saturday saw a historic agreement between Belize and its northern neighbor as the Mexican president visited the country for the first time. And after several meetings, trade between the two countries should now be a whole lot easier thanks to the tariff waivers Mexico has committed to.
And Belize is now also trying to strengthen its relationship with its western neighbor - Guatemala. Peten's Vice Minister of Agriculture arrived in Belize on a mission to learn more about the agro-productive sector and to collaborate with the ministry to find ways of improving the industry. Now, this is confidence building in real time - living the way sovereign and independent neighbors should.
And according to the minister, he hopes it is the first step in a long journey that will hopefully bear the same results as the relationship between Belize and Mexico.
Courtney Menzies was at the first meeting today in Belmopan and has this story:
Belize shares a lot with its neighbor Guatemala - climate, culture, history - and today, the first meeting was held to start sharing agriculture practices.
Agriculture is a large income earner for both countries and that's why Peten's Vice Minister made the journey to Belmopan City to sit down with Belize's minister, Jose Mai.
And according to Minister Mai, this is a great deal for Belize, who can learn a lot from one of Guatemala's largest regions.
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture
"I have visited them informally a couple times and just fascinated with the things we're seeing in Guatemala, what they're doing. They of course have more than a million head of beef cattle in only Peten, Peten is 1/3 the size of the entire Guatemala Republic so it's a huge area and I think it only Peten that has a vice minister for agriculture because of the size and magnitude of production in the area. And so Elmer Pacheco here is the vice minister of Agriculture in Peten so whatever they do in agriculture is important to us, whatever we do is important to them."
And he hopes that following this first meeting, Belize can eventually break into a new export market.
Hon. Jose Mai
"One of the things that excites me is their program, that have a sweet potato project, they are producing and targeting European markets, potatoes can grow in Belize easy. I've seen it done in Honduras and they export to Germany and I think they're following in the steps of Honduras, I think they are, to a great extent, looking at what Honduras is doing and replicating it, and I think we can do the same, that market is immense for sweet potatoes in Europe."
Vice Minister, Elmer Pacheco, committed to the collaboration, and is willing to share Peten's best kept secrets, especially in the cattle industry.
Elmer Pacheco - Vice Minister of Agriculture, Peten, Guatemala
"We share the same geographic locations and pests and diseases basically are the same and they're here to familiarize with what Belize is doing in the agricultural sector so they can see where best we can corporate and then also he offered his experience from Peten to our Belizean counterparts, he's willing to share what they are doing in areas of their production, livestock, watermelons, melons, even papayas, they're exporting papayas and also their cattle, they have vast technology in cattle as well and they want to learn what we in Belize are doing so that we can corporate."
And this meeting is only a start since the Vice Minister is hoping to also host Belize's technical personnel from the ministry in the future, preempting a farmer exchange program to benefit local farmers as well as those across the border.
The event will continue tomorrow as the Vice Minister will tour Central Farm's and CARDI's research stations.
