Why Helping M.S.M.E.s is Important for Belize

John Briceño

Today’s launch of the micro, small and medium enterprise strategy and road show, as was just highlighted, will aim to advance business among the companies that fall under these categories. Prime Minister John Briceño told reporters after delivering his speech that providing business owners with these opportunities is meaningful in the development of Belize, simply because these businesses far outnumber large ones.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“M.S.M.E.s in Belize represent about seventy percent of the businesses in the entire country, fifty percent of G.D.P.  These are some serious numbers, but the problem is that they do not have the necessary support. They can get legislatively from government, from banking, access to technical know-how, access to markets, especially our local markets. If you see what the Ministry of Agriculture has done, where he is insisting that when we have our local products, he does not allow any kind of importation for those products, that’s one way of how we can help M.S.M.E.s.  Now the road show is just to be able to go to the rest of the country. For too long governments have been Belize City centric that everything happens here and then they finish. We want to go to the length and breadth of this country where we can meet small business people and entrepreneurs and tell them look at what we have here, look at what we can do, look at how we can help you, look at how we can help you be successful; how joining together as a big community you can have more access to financing, more access to markets, both local and international.”