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The Belize Investment and Business Climate Action Plan is the harmonization of three strategies in order to foster a better investment climate in Belize. The plan revolves around 9 policy pillars that will allow an easier way to do business. Today, the government launched the technical working groups of each strategy. We heard more about it at the ceremony.
Dr Leroy Almendarez, Executive Director, Beltraide
"This looks at, holistically, or wholesomely the whole environment where doing business in Belize. Many time we might say, we're open for business but are we making sure that we're addressing any challenges that a person who may want to do business in the country, are we addressing that? So this has to do, or really, it's an output from three different initiatives that we had. One being the national investment policy and strategy, the second one the MSME policy and strategy and then export competitiveness roadmap. In essence, we look at, are we ready for investment to come into this country? And when we talk about investment, we don't talk about only foreign investment, we talk about local investments. Are we meeting their needs, do we have the legislation, yes, we have new legislation and the new legislation makes it much easier to do business, we also incorporate the micro, small, and medium enterprises."
Ishmael Quiroz, Executive Director, EDC
"Today's event is actually the activation of technical working groups that will be tasked with implementing the 9 pillars of the Belize Investment and Business Climate Action Plan. And so what we have brought together are the action owners, the technical persons involved, either from the public sector but also from the private sector and other organizations who have a role to play in actioning the items that are to be delivered and so today's event is meant to bring everybody together so that everyone is on the same page in terms of the objectives, the tasks that need to be completed and their critical role in contributing towards success."
"There are varying duration of the three strategies that have been combined. The longest one is the export competitiveness roadmap, that is six years, the MSME roadmap is five years and the national investment policy and strategy is four years. The reality though is that a lot of work is already getting done but what BIBCAP provides is a unique opportunity to cohesively begin to report in a unified and regular way."
Lincoln Blake, Director, IPCU, Min of Investment
"We basically, our strength within that organization or that structure is policy. We drive the policy changes and the recommendations for there to be change and for the objectives to be met. One of the objectives, the main objective for BIBCAP is that by 2030 we expect to be a significant investment hub within the Caribbean and the Central American region. All of our initiatives, the 266 actions are geared towards that objective and the deliverables of that objective, which are several, you have 67, but the main deliverables is to produce employment, and increase production and diversify the economy, hence having a better standard of living, that's the main drive behind it."
