Belize to Import Primary Products from Mexico to Produce Value Added Commodities

Belize and the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico, signed two Memoranda of Business Collaboration on September ninth. A release from the Government of Belize says, the first memorandum was signed between the Corozal Free Zone and the Chetumal Industrial Park to facilitate collaboration between both entities. The second memorandum formalized the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment and the Secretary of Economic Development of the State of Quintana Roo to establish a framework for technical cooperation and coordination. Today, Minister of Agriculture Jose Mai shared with us details on how Belize will benefit from these agreements.

Jose Mai

Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture

“This also gives us the opportunity for us to convert primary products into value added products. Let me give you an example. There are CARICOM states that imports raw material from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines. They add value to it and later on export it to Belize as a national product. I will give you a classic example; the Commonwealth of Dominica has asked us to clarify condensed milk. They are now producing condensed milk. When you look at the Commonwealth of Dominica they don’t have a strong dairy industry and they don’t have a sugar industry. So, you can conclude that they import those raw products, add value to it, and say hey this is a Dominica product. We live among some for the biggest country in Central America. Mexico is a country of primary production. They produce a lot of primary products. We are saying to them, let us partner with you, partner with us, let us add value. Come to the zone, we open an industrial section in the free zone. We can add value to the products we import from you and we can export this to the CARICOM as a Belizean product. So, that is in our view what we ought to do. We are not using our Mexican neighbor’s ability to produce primary products. So, this gives us that opportunity. We are saying we want to partner with you. We want to add value to your primary product then export it.”