And one official tourist who was in Belize for the past two days was El Salvador's Minister of Agriculture, Oscar Guardado and his contingent.
That country has about the same landmass of Belize but about 12 times our population. So they came her looking for grains and other products that Belizean farmers can provide to their country. Minister Jose Mai gave a review of the visit which concluded yesterday:
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"They are looking at rice. They are looking at fruits, soursop, and the byproduct of the products made from soursop. They are looking at soybean and they are also looking at meats. So we finalized the tour at the facility where we quarantine the animals for export to Mexico."
"But they are interested. As a matter of fact, I think they went back with a huge eagerness to do business with Belize. I know that they were very convinced of what they saw. They are convinced that we have a tremendous production capacity in this country."
"What they want is a consistent supply of grain. They have identified two important commodities that they consume daily. Small red beans and white corn. But they needed to come to Belize to confirm that these quantities are available in the quantities that they want."
"We do not have in quantities the red beans. They have right now the seed. But they want us to produce seed material for them and to do commercial production of these beans and white corn. They also have a special variety of white corn that they consume and that they want us to produce."
"Look, no trade of any quantity occurs easily within countries. There is always the matters to deal with, plant health, the regulations in place, the tariffs in place, the trade agreements in place. As we speak, the Minister Courtenay and his team are preparing for the partial school program with El Salvador."
