7 News Belize

Belize And Guat – Common Ground In Trade?
posted (July 17, 2015)
Last night, we told you how the Guatemalan Government doesn't want Belize to build a Forward Operating Base at Sarstoon Island, the Southernmost point in the country. While that is certain to cause some friction between both sides on the border, trade relations may be moving forward.

Today officials from the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, BAHA, and the Customs Department met with the private sector to discuss the Partial Scope Trade Agreement between Belize and Guatemala. The government's trade technocrats wanted to find out what sort of goods those business men from Belize City would like to make available for commercial trading in Guatemala, and what would be the challenges everyone would need to overcome to make it happen.

7News stopped by and spoke with the facilitators:

Dr. Leroy Almendarez - Director, Foreign Trade
"The primary focus of the consultation, let me just give some feedback. In 2010, the Partial Scope Agreement between Belize and Guatemala came into effect. And so as we approach the 5 year anniversary and one of the clauses within the agreement states that the scope of the agreement can be expanded. And so these consultations will tell us to get from our side those products of interest that we might like to seek market access for in Guatemala. Because they will also be doing the same and we also want to find out what challenges our private sector in facing, in terms of capacity and productivity. That is, will we have continuous supply if you will, when we gained market access into the Guatemalan market. So that's very important for us because once the demand is there, we must be able to satisfy those demands with the goods that we say we are ready to seek market entry for. Because it's not only access, but it's also for entry into the market, ensuring that those products meet the standards and quality and pass through the SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) and that they are original products. So all of those things have to be addressed and that's what we are looking at. We started off at Spanish lookout and it was pretty informative. One of the challenges was that initially we found out that they are interested yes because increasing for example the quota in terms of export for corn. And the other things we looked at, just to mention a few, cattle. That we could look at in terms of the weight, the weight that's in the Partial Scope Agreement, which we think is something that can be increased. But of course one of the challenges that they say they face is the fact that this whole idea of transfer payments, this whole thing where trying to find a mechanism where payments can be transferred since one uses quetzal and one uses Belizean dollars. So some mechanism, where there is a commercial bank and we hope that that could be facilitated very shortly because it will affect trade facilitation between both countries."

The matters discussed at these sessions, where possible, will be addressed at the upcoming Belize-Guatemala Administrative Commission Meeting scheduled for the 6th and 7th August.

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