And after Brussels, the PM traveled to the Republic of Korea, where he and president Yoon Suk Yeol signed a historic cooperation framework agreement. This agreement will see new hospitals in the country, and a step up in our e-governance, among other things. PM Briceno explained that it wasn't easy to get the funding though since at first, Korea viewed Belize as a "middle income country."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think that was a very successful trip. What happen is that the Koreans presently have the tenth largest economy in the world and as the president pointed out to me, 70 years ago, they did not have enough paper for the children to go to school and they believe that they manage to develop their country because they had many countries assisting them. Now that they're at a point of their development, now they believe that they should be able to help out developing countries, they have this special fund, EDCFD, Economic Development Corporation Fund of which developing countries can access funding at 0.01% to be paid over thirty years and in many instances a part of that fund, of that loan is even a grant. But Belize, unfortunately we are considered a middle income country based on GDP and we have to be making the case that we are not a middle income country because while our GDP is fairly high compared to other countries, it's only 400,000 of us but we are in a big country so I tell them imagine Barbados in one of our islands, Ambergris Caye, with 100 miles of paved road, you covered the entire country, we don't and we need clinics, we need bridges, we need farm roads, we need schools, we need hospitals. So it is very costly for Belize to be able to put in the necessary infrastructure that we want to provide for our people. And the president agreed with us and so he instructed immediately that they should allow Belize now to have access to these funds. We are looking at several projects. We already have with CABEI, they're already, through the Korean funds, looking at different hospitals but we're looking at the possibility of now giving priority to Toledo, a hospital for Toledo and for Orange Walk. We are also looking at the possibility of digitizing the land titles unit and the land registry which is something that is very necessary for economic activity in the country. They are so ahead when it comes to e-commerce and e-governance, we were also talking about a forensic, a modern, well equipped forensic lab for which again, he has agreed that he is prepared for us to be able to access these funds to be able to do these."
And the Belize City Mayor accompanied him, where he signed an agreement to create a sister city relationship with Busan.
