Today, the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology, and Public Utilities hosted the launch of a National Transportation Master Plan. It's a multi-million dollar initiative in the planning stage that the different ministries are working with the Korean Government start to roll out.
Representatives from all the different ministries were present and 7News attended to find out what it is. Here's how Minister Joy Grant explained it:
Hon. Joy Grant - Minister of Energy, Science and Technology, Public Utilities
"If you say you are going to upgrade a road then we need to know what will be the demand. Will people move there? Will there be additional production? All those things come into place. That's why a plan is so very important."
Daniel Ortiz
"Can you tell us the effects of these different roads that you listed out this master plan will actually affect?"
Minister Joy Grant
"To reason being one of our key industries, we looked at some of the key sites and the top two were Altun Ha and Caracol. That road we believe to Caracol we would have a lot more visitors going there if the road is improved, but its a much longer road so that means its more expensive. At this point Altun Ha is used quite a bit, so the priority came out at this point to do the Altun Ha road for tourism. The coastal road is for actually not only for development but actually for example if there is a hurricane, people would need to get out of Belize City if its heading this way fast. You really would like more than one road and so that came up as a high priority for us and also to get people to go to Placencia - also getting the big trucks to that road and not the Hummingbird Highway, so those are the things you look at when you are deciding on the priorities."
Jung Wook Kim - Researcher, Korea Development Institute
"The transportation master plan, we try to collect all the available data in Belize and incorporate it into the method which is used in Korea in emphasizing all the facility type infrastructures and then we formulate the plans into the transportation master plan. That is what we are working on or so we try to find financial solutions because all of the infrastructure facility requires huge investments, so we try to find out the available resources."
The initial stages of the master plan is to gather data on how the country's transportation works, and where the deficiencies are. Grant told us that it is estimated that the Master plan will take 2 years to implement.
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