Prime Minister John Briceno returned to the country today after 20 days abroad. He's going into a house meeting next Friday where - reports tell us - government plans to introduce legislation to replace the definitive agreement - which he famously tore up at the last house meeting on June 16th. Now what will this new legislation look like? And how will it replace the DA? That's what we tried to get out of the Prime Minister today at the airport - but he didn't say much:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I can tell you, I cannot give you details because it's not finished yet and it has to go to the Cabinet first, but I said the idea is that we're moving away from this issue of the definitive agreement, we want to have legislation that can cover any kind of investment, especially when it comes to this type of cruise tourism. We believe that it is something that is way better than what the UDP had when their definitive agreement and it's going to be done transparently, we're discussing with all of the stakeholders, and I've not seen the Cabinet agenda as yet, I'm just getting in, I hope that it should be ready for the Cabinet to discuss and if the Cabinet approves it then it will go the House for it to be passed on into law."
Our reports say the legislation will offer certain tax breaks and incentives to any cruise investor who passes a certain threshold - possibly one set in line with the 350 million US that Portico and its partners plan to invest in the Port of Magical Belize.
