Today the Ministry of Investment launched its Belize Enterprise Empowerment Project. It will see grants being given to 95 micro small and medium enterprises, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
At the ceremony, the CEO in the Ministry of Investment explained how they turned leftover funds into these grants.
Narda Garcia, CEO, Ministry of Investment
"Our MSMEs especially are micro, they have limited ability to fulfill all the requirements for a loan so I ventured to ask PM to write a letter to CARICOM development fund and to make this money which was available from the first million dollars, only $200,000 was used and we had $800,000 and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to do it as a grant with requirements and education and everything to give to micro small and medium enterprises, so that's what we're doing now. So we don't want to just give a handout, you're going to apply, you reach your requirements, whether you are micro small or medium but you will have to get some training on business development, on technology, on marketing, on packaging for our MSMEs to understand the business environment that they are getting into. So we don't want to just give you money and leave you out there, we're going to give you money but we're going to train you. So $5,000 for the micro or the startups, $7,000 for the mature ones that are already out there and we can see them around then for the bigger ones that are more export ready, we have a lot of them that just need that extra push, we will give them $20,000. So it's 95 grants that we will give out."
