After that address President Ma’s next appearance for a joint press conference at the George Price Center. It was preceded by the signing of a number of cooperation agreements. At the press conference, President Ma was asked how he rates Belize – and he again discussed the new flexible diplomatic model –and discussed the implications for dollar diplomacy.
Question,
“Where does Belize rank on the list of countries you reach out to and help on annual basis when it comes to funding and maybe again our Prime Minister can chip in?”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“I assure you sir that he does not work for the government and that is a question that we planted.”
President Ma Ying-Jeou,
“I think you raise a very important question and a most difficult question for my government at the moment. The economic downturn, the financial tsunami, has caused our export market to shrink which means that we are badly hit by the economic crisis and to cope with that particularly cope with the situation where we have dwindling resources for offering aid, so we have to prioritize the items so that we can use the resources at a optimal efficiency and reasonable allocation and this is difficult and so we have already changed the course of our foreign policy in the sense that we want to make sure that we will first strengthen the current relationship between our allies and try to enhance the substantive relations with countries we do not have diplomatic relations before our allies.
We will try everything possible to keep the current program of cooperation and if there is a urgent to expand it or to prolong it, we will certainly be happy to discuss the issue with our allies and come to consensus. For additional needs, particularly for countries who are also badly hit by the economic crisis, we certainly will try our best to help but I have to be honest with you, we can’t really guarantee that we could meet all your needs but we certainly will try. After all we have 23 allies and we treasure the friendship we have established in the past years so we will try our best.”
