Yesterday we told you that the PM arrived back in the country this weekend after his trip to Venezuela. But he wasn't on vacation - according to the official record, the PM and President Maduro discussed renewing and expanding PetroCaribe as well as how Venezuela could assist Belize City after the destruction hurricane Lisa caused. Based on the team that accompanied him - including the Governor of the Central Bank - and the Economic Ambassador, they probably also discussed the nearly 500 million Belize dollars that Venezuela has on its books for the Petrocaribe debt.
The media met Briceno at the airport on Sunday and he explained more.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We had a very successful meeting with President Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, the foreign minister and others along with foreign minister Courtenay, Ambassador Espat, Ambassador Oscar Arnold, all of them were there as a team to look at the relationship between Venezuela and Belize."
"We're looking at many aspects of what's happening in Belize. We're looking at the issue of how signing agreements based on education, on environment, on agriculture, on culture, all of these and including the debt, looking at trying to reconcile what happened with PetroCaribe but more in particular seeing as how we can revive PetroCaribe, the PetroCaribe program, to be able to see if we can in the near future once the United States ease up the restrictions or the sanctions against Venezuela, that they will allow us to be able to import subsidized fuel from Venezuela."
Reporter:
"So there's nothing concrete that you can report on after this trip, you mean there's still a lot of work to do?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well of course the work is never finished and as it is, yes, one of the things we've been looking at, we've been trying to restructure the entire debt of Belize, trying to see how we can reduce the debt to GDP. We have done successfully the super bond and now we have the blue bond, we're looking at how, by growing the economy, that we can reduce debt to GDP and of course the Venezuela is another one but more work is left to be done."
"Basically the framework is first of all, we have to reconcile what is owed, what they have in their books, and what Belize has in their books, so we have to start with that reconciliation."
Reporter:
"Then speak about PetroCasas I think as some sort of immediate relief to Belize?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"What happened is that we spoke about hurricane Lisa, how it affected Belize, in particular Belize City, and that it affected the housing especially of the poor, of the vulnerable, they have a program to build low cost housing and so they're prepared to make that available to Belize so we can build some homes for the most needy, the ones that were affected during the hurricane. But we were also talking about agriculture and the very high cost of fertilizers and they produce fertilizers so again we want to see how we can work a program where they can assist us at reduced priced for fertilizers for our farmers."
