7 News Belize

GOB Relaxes Foreign Exchange Regs
posted (July 31, 2020)
And, we also asked about a significant change in foreign exchange regulations that was unveiled as a part of the recovery plan. It is SI 106 signed last week, and it takes away regulatory approval from the Central Bank for certain foreign exchange transactions. The PM said it should make business easier to do:

Jules Vasquez- Reporter
"It seems that it eviscerates the regulator in trying to hold the peg because you can't have free currency flows in a system with a fixed peg. It would seem antithetical."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"The rationale is simply to try to produce greater ease of doing business. Principally, this obtains to land transactions. There has been a campaign on the part of the real estate dealers, the lawyers, a sustained campaign. It has been going on for a while. And we've been examining this thing, we've been in consultation with the Central Bank. At this time when there is an urgency to have things move, to have things flow, we thought we should in fact accede to that long standing request. The requirement to get Central Bank permission was nothing more than a keep back because nobody could point to even one instance in which that permission was ever refused. What is happening now is that we have indeed eliminated the need for permission. But there is the requirement that the Central Bank be notified. When we see how the system operates under the new dispensation, if it turns out that there are multiple continuing constant repeated objections to individual transactions on the part of the Central Bank then that results in a hole that would oblige us to reconsider the position. See it as you wish, as experimental, see it as us trying a thing, and I am telling you we will retreat quickly."

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