7 News Belize

How Will Brexit Affect Belize?
posted (December 19, 2019)

One week ago, general elections in Britain saw Boris Johnson and the conservative party returned to office on an overwhelming mandate, the largest in a generation.

Claire Bruce - MBE, Deputy High Commissioner 
“What I can really say of course, there was a mandate for the conversation government that no-one was unexpected, including them. But it is a great for any country to have a mandate that allows a government to get on and deliver what it wants to do. Now, I know we’ll wait and see what comes out of the next few days, you know we will exit the EU by the end of January and then we will start on the other work that comes, that will be about trade work but I think of more importance in particular when we’re talking about today is the work we’ll be doing on climate change. So as you know, the UK will be hosting COP 26 in November in Glasgow and we know that Belize has an important role to play in that.â€￾

Jules Vasquez
“The UK is one of Belize’s leading trade partners. Will there be any variants in this trade relationship, particularly as it relates to the bananas that Belize sells to the UK and sugar?â€￾

Claire Bruce
“You are covered under a CARICOM agreement, that means that everything continues to go forward as is at the moment, while we go through this period. But clearly, as we go through a transitionary period, we need to get this all important trade agreement in place for when we are global Britain and doing things slightly differently and it’s going to come in the next year.â€￾

Johnson campaigned on a single slogan: to get Brexit done. And now that he's won so convincingly, it means that by the end of January 2020, the UK will leave the European Union. It's a consequential development affecting trade relations globally, and especially in CARICOM, which has historical trade ties with the UK. That's especially true in Belize, where we export all our bananas and much of our sugar to the UK.

Yesterday we asked the British High Commissioner what, if anything, will change after Brexit

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