7 News Belize

Will Belize Default on Debt ?
posted (April 27, 2020)
And so, while government says it hopes to recover somewhat financially before it even thinks of cutting the pay of teachers and public officers, can it pay its creditors?

11 days ago, Standard and Poor rated Belize's outlook as negative and warned the finance world that, quote, "The negative outlook reflects increased vulnerability to nonpayment of upcoming debt service, particularly the interest due on Belize's global bond (around US$13 million) in August 2020." End quote.

Here's what the Prime Minister had to say on it today:

Jules Vasquez- Reporter
"Are we at risk of sovereign default? We know that Belize's ratings have been lowered."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"Well, I want to be careful. I don't want to be saying anything to our bondholders by way of a press interview. So, I will just say this. I note that, what the people who specialize in this sort of thing refer to as the official international sector- it's basically the ones that matter in terms of this whole business of sovereign debt, commercially and multilaterally; the official sector, the international official sector is pretty much agreed that there has to be debt relief for the sovereigns. We are playing a waiting game to see whether that call for wider sovereign debt relief will in fact be actioned by the IDB, the World Bank, the IMF. So it's a bit of a waiting game. I don't want to go further than that but your point earlier that you meet a juncture where there is no money. That speaks for itself but I say nothing more."

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