And while the Trump election will change a whole lot in Belize - US relations - it shouldn't affect tourism - especially cruise - where the major cruise lines are among the very wealthy US companies.
Not so for MSC - which is a Swiss-Italian company. As the PM reported in October, they were looking at the possibility of buying Stake Bank Caye from OPSA and taking over the project to deliver Belize's first cruise berthing facility.
That's why the government made the compulsory acquisition of part of the island in August, to pave the way to the completion of the project.
But, the drive to push ahead with Stake Bank seems to have cooled considerably in the past two months - and reports to our newsroom suggest that MSC may have lost interest in the project. If so, it would make the compulsory acquisition even more questionable. But today the PM said the negotiations continue:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"That's not a negotiation for me. As far as I know, the negotiations continue between MSC and the bank but that's something that I am sitting around the table in negotiations encouraging both parties or any other partner that would want to partner with the bank or buy over the project to do so. It's in our interest. And so the last I heard is that they will continue talking, continue negotiating and hopefully they could come to some agreement but, again, we have to wait at least until January when the court hears the case that Mr Feinstein has now put against the acquisition of the land."
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