7 News Belize

PM Says No Devaluation Threat
posted (May 29, 2020)
And without tourism's hard currency earnings, does Belize run a real risk of devaluation?

Tourism is the country's top foreign exchange earner, its largest employer, and accounts for half of the country's GDP.

In 2019, total tourism expenditure in Belize was half a billion US dollars. Between January and April of this year, tourist spending in Belize fell by 82 million US dollars compared to the same period last year.

But despite this massive hit for foreign exchange earnings, the PM says the currency peg will be maintained:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We are confident if nothing else and that is that we will maintain the peg. I have every confidence in saying that we will not reach the rock bottom that you project that would raise any specter of any kind of devaluation. That is not on the cards. In terms of foreign exchange and where we are now, government has its plans, there are the central bank reserves ultimately to backstop what the commercial banks have and we have our plans as to how in fact we will be able to boost the foreign exchange situation. I don't want to get into the details right now, we are still finalizing with the central bank the initiative that we are going to launch, but I can give you every assurance that we will not go through to the end of the year, absolutely not completely run out of foreign exchange. Ain't going to happen."

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7 News Belize