Will Trade Dispute Impact Inflation in Belize?

Higher import costs can contribute to inflation, reducing the purchasing power of Belizean consumers. This could particularly affect low-income households, worsening economic inequality.

 

Dr. Leroy Almendarez, Economist

“But for us, when it comes to inflation, we have to look at increasing our manufacturing capability, domestic production… but not only domestic production, but ensuring that whatever is put into our cost of production can make the price, without compromising quality, but the price is competitive.  Because if the price is higher, we tend to see sometimes where they say products produced domestically at times when you’re trying to price it because of the cost of inputs, it doesn’t make you competitive.  See, it doesn’t make you competitive. We have to look at other markets.  We have to strengthen our relationship with Central America.  We have to do intra-regional trade with CARICOM, we have the CARICOM Single Market & Economy.  We have to take full advantage of that as well.  And so, in terms of penetration in there, I mean, it’s duty-free trade and so we must take full advantage of that.  We have SICA, but we also have SIECA, SIECA is the economic integration.”