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The Inter American-Development Bank's Vice President, Alexandre Meira De Rosa, visited Belize this week to meet with top government officials and members of the private sector. He was here to discuss how the bank's partnership and cooperation with the Government and the private sector could be strengthened to ensure the country's continued sustainable development. 

The IDB Vice President was accompanied by Cassandra Rogers, the IDB Country Representative, and he paid a courtesy visit to Prime Minister Dean Barrow.

The IDB executive also met with Joy Grant, the Governor of the Central Bank of Belize, to discuss the current macroeconomic and fiscal conditions in Belize. They also had meetings with key private sector partners to discuss collaboration opportunities. 

A press release from the bank says, quote, "Vice President Rosa signed two technical cooperation (grant) agreements under the IDB Lab with Ya'axche Conservation Trust for the project â€ËœEnhancing Conservation in Belize's Protected Areas through Disruptive Technologies' and with the Development Finance Corporation for the project â€ËœGreen Finance for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for MSMEs' totaling US $924,000." End quote.

He then visited the country's only regional sanitary land at Mile 24 on the George Price Highway. You'll remember that the nation's garbage disposal process was completely overhauled in 2013 with the opening of this landfill and 4 transfer stations. That project was funded by the IDB and the OPEC Fund for International Development.

The IDB Vice President's visit to Belize is a part of his overseas tour of several IDB-member countries.

Luxurious MOFA HQ, Phantom Price Tag

This Morning Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington received the second and final portion of the Taiwanese contribution to the construction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Belmopan Headquarters.

But how much is ongoing construction costing? Well that figure, nor the amount of funding provided by the government of Belize has been made public record. 

The Ministry's Belmopan headquarters with the phantom price tag is set to be completed by June of 2020.

Table Tennis Training

Table Tennis is getting some help from a top international trainer this week.  He's helping sports coordinators in a course being administered at the Mexico Sports Center.  We stopped in today:

Luisana Perez - Representative, ITTF
"This activity is part of developing the national association program. It's an ITTF program to give support for the national associations with more needs in Latin America. Belize was selected to be a part of this program, and we are here as ITTF to boost the table tennis [sport] in Belize, with different activities in the 15-days action play. There is education for coaches, promotion through the TV and radio also to promote table tennis in general. There are a workshop with national coaches, [and] training camps with kids, but the main idea is to promote table tennis and give support for the national association to move up to another level."

"This activity is the education for coaches, but in this course, participating are about 16 sport educational coordinators. This is really great, and I saw a great motivation because, for most of them, this is the first time contact with table tennis. And the main idea of this course is to introduce them to the basic techniques for the organization of tournaments, the rules of table tennis in this first stage. The next stage is they have the mission to promote table tennis in the schools at different departments and districts."

The training continues next week.