Amidst all the bad news about Belize's economy and our exports which you've heard so far on the news tonight, there is some good news coming out of the UK.
Most Favoured Nation Tariff preferences for Belize and the Caribbean will be upheld - it has been decided.
It's a huge relief for banana producers throughout the region where the UK had been moving to a zero production/zero tariff system which would have effectively nullified the economic partnership agreement Belize has for duty free exports to Europe. The "zero" system would have allowed other countries - who produce cheaper than Belize - to compete with duty free exports - which would wipe out Belize bananas.
The CEO in the Ministry of agriculture discussed it with us via Zoom conference from Belmopan today:
Jose Alpuche, CEO, Ministry of Agriculture
"They said zero for zero. If they did not produce the product that they would move the MFN to zero and if that had been implemented we would in effect be crowded out from the market, because all the products that we produce that they don't produce from every country would have then been able to come in duty free into the UK. So it would have meant an extremely stiff competition if not the total crowding out of the UK market for us for things like bananas and sugar. Now you have quite a lot of countries especially southeast Asia, but because of economies scale and cheaper labour they are able to compete much more than we do and if they were to go in duty free it would have really jeopardize our ability to export some of these products to the UK and especially for Belize we were one of the most highly vulnerable countries in this respect because over 90% of what we send to Europe actually goes to the UK."
Reporter
"Explain it if you can in the terms of how important it is now particularly in Covid-19 when you know our number foreign exchange earner which is tourism has crashed and now everyone has a sudden interest in the agro productive sector, because that is the only way right now to bring in foreign exchange."
Jose Alpuche, CEO, Ministry of Agriculture
"If we lose nay market any exports right now that brings in foreign exchange it would make not only the agricultural sector weaker, but as you rightly pointed out it would really put the economy in a very stage because we lose foreign earning, which is required for importing everything from health supplies to even some of the food stuff."
Alpuche
led the lobbying efforts in London and Brussels with a private and public sector lobby.
The countries which would have been most seriously affected include Belize, who had 95% of its total exports to the UK in 2019, the Dominican Republic and St Lucia which both had 85%, and Guyana at 83%.
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