John Briceno, Prime Minister
"What has happened is that for a long time the cattle was being exported into Guatemala. Now here in Belize it breaks no law to export it into Guatemala, obviously we're negotiating an agreement with Guatemala to be able to formalize that. But the people they need the meat and they go with it so there's no taxes that is being paid. Mexico came in, when Mexico came in, they want to have a long terms agreement with us to buy, they need a minimum of 2,000, that's just for them to breakeven. They want to be 5, 10,000 heads every month. Now because of the competition and I also have a cattle ranch and I remember in 2006, 2007 when we started off, we were being paid 40 cents on the hoof, that means live, they pay you 40 cents and they take the cattle. Today because of the competition because of them coming in, the Mexicans, now the price has gone up to over $2.50 so you imagine how much more, especially then we have over 5,000 small cattle ranchers. 80% of them only have 50 heads or less so that's having a tremendous impact on their lives and helping them. But when you export to Mexico, you're at a disadvantage, you have to pay the business tax so they can't compete. It makes it easier for the Guatemalans to say, well, I'll pay you a little extra more if you sell it to me. They want to drive the Mexicans out of business, obviously, because once they do that, they don't have to pay $2.50 or $2.75, they could go back and pay 80 cents. So it's just good business sense for us as a country to be able to protect the Mexican market and that is why we removed the business tax to give them as best as possible a level playing field."