And as the PM mentioned in his speech, the debt to GDP ratio has dropped by 25%, and while that may sound like good news, we're far from being out of the woods - because it's still at 108% of GDP, way, way above the global benchmark of 60%.
The PM accepted that 108% is way too high and outlined their timeline for trying to decrease it.
But still, the PM has praised his government more than once for turning the economy around and surprising even the IMF. However, as you heard Shyne say, it doesn't count since it was merely a rebound rather than actual growth of the economy. But the PM isn't letting the naysayers get to him.
Reporter:
"A 25% reduction in debt to GDP ratio to 108% obviously we have a long way to go, this is perhaps the highest average in the region."
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I don't think so, I think Barbados has even a higher debt to GDP than Belize but the point we're making is that in the first year we manage to reduce it by 25%, that does not mean we're out of the woods, we're still in dangerous territory so our objective or goal is to be able to reduce debt to GDP to 80% by 2025 and by 2030 we hope that the next government, and we hope that it's going to be a PUP government, will be able then to reduce it to 30%. We have set our targets, we have set our goals as to how we're going to be able to reduce the debt to GDP."
Reporter:
"The leader of the opposition seeks to discredit your administration's progress in 2021 by saying you can't necessarily highlight COVID 19 growth if you started at -100, just reaching at 1 is growth but not necessarily the type of growth that we're looking for."
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I Always remember what the Mr Price use to tell me, the father of the nation, he said when your opponent starts to praise you, sit back and think what stupid thing you have done. So I do expect the leader of the opposition to criticize. Let's leave it at that."
"The point is that by any metrics, Belize has moved forward, we have moved this country considerably, better than anybody expected. The IMF was amazed when they saw, the team leader said that he has never seen a country turn around things so fast in the world in one year. But that doesn't mean we're out of the woods, we're not even in 2019 levels and 2019 we have to remember that Belize was already in a recession, the economy was contracting under the UDP so for people to say we get to 2019 level, we're out of the woods, we're not out of the woods. Cruise tourism only had 200,000 last year when we were aiming for a million passengers. Overnight stays, we're only about 58% of where we were before the pandemic so we expect that this year we will be able to reach to those levels and that will be able to fuel the 6.5% that the IMF thinks that we can have."
