A document posted today on the Central Bank's website, shows the Government of Belize pressing the button to trigger serious debt restructuring talks with owners of the Superbond.
The document is called the Belize Economic and Financial Update and it marks the culmination of the debt review process. It's 19 pages long and you can view it on the Central Bank website.
But in a nutshell, it makes the case that Belize's external debt is unsustainable, particularly with declining oil revenues, a change in the global financial landscape and compensation owing to the former owners of BEL and BTL.
According to the statement, quote, "overall obligations look certain to exceed the country's capacity to pay, even when conservative assumptions are used."
It adds that, quote, "the country is facing sizeable financing gaps from 2013 onwards."
How much is the financing gap? Try 8% of GDP in 2014! That's 130 million US dollars.
And most of that is due to debt obligations - mainly the Superbond - seen here as the coloured area.
But the country's total debt - projected at 1.5 billion US dollars - includes compensation for BEL and BTL.
Now, Government estimates say compensation for both will not be more than 200 million Belize dollars - but the former owners say the compensation should amount to almost half a billion US dollars.
That is a vast difference - which is yet to be settled. For the time being the financial update uses a middle figure between both estimates and pegs compensation at 270 million US dollars.
But beyond all those very big figures, the bottom line though is that documents makes the case that Belize can't continue to service the Superbond - so creditors would be wise to negotiate new terms.
The next Superbond payment of 46 million dollars is due on August 20th, 2012.
