Corozal Free Zone to Reopen for Business on February 1st

Minister Mai confirmed to News Five that cabinet decided that the Corozal Free Zone will be reopened on February first.  Its reopening was one of the manifesto promises of the party.  The free zone had been closed for almost a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and thousands of persons became unemployed in the north.  Initially, the free zone should have reopened before the Christmas holidays, but that did not materialize.  This was because the Corozal Chamber of Commerce, which consists of business owners from within the zone, was unwilling to pay for the costs of retrofitting for sanitization measures – a bill of a little over one hundred thousand dollars. Minister Mai says that a task force to ensure minimum risks has been created.

Jose Mai

Jose Mai, Minister of Enterprise

“This gives the investors and the free zone management time to prepare all the facilities, the measures the structures in place that would ensure that people are safe in the free zone. This means that OIRSA will be doing a part of the sanitation. They will be doing the spraying of vehicles, the walk-in tunnels where you walk through. There will be people checking temperatures before they get in. and every store has to be well prepared with wash hands, soaps and all these gels that they use that will prevent the disease from being spread or people to get infested with the virus.”