The Prime Minister said this is a key sector of the economy:

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well I have been mentioning several times when I introduced it to the house what we want to do is that many small businesses become a part of the informal sector they don't want to register with the Belize tax service they don't want to register with social security because they feel that they get nothing in return. What we have done we have made it easier for them to register through BELTRAIDE, BELTRAIDE will help them with that and made it so much easier but also as an incentive we say if you register then we can give you tax exemptions on your goods that you need to import for up to 4 years and I think for a total of 1 million dollars. So we have been saying that for some time so basically that what we've been doing. For instance if you are a small entrepreneur doing hot sauce then you could then import your bottles duty free if you are registered under the MSMEs program. We also even said that we will give you an exemption from any fees or penalties you have to pay because you are registered so we have been doing that we are encouraging to move from the informal sector into the formal sector."