Are Belize's banks under threat? Well that's what the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dean Barrow told the Second CEO Summit of the Americas in Panama last week. He was asked to give an address on Productive Integration for Inclusive Development and he spoke in dire terms of the strict anti-money laundering regulations that the US is putting on banks in the region. Here's what he said, quote:
"There is a crisis in my own country and in several others in the Eastern Caribbean, where the big US banks are 'de-risking' by terminating their correspondent relationships with our domestic banks. Indeed, even our Central Banks are being cut off; and our financial and trade architecture cannot survive this phenomenon. ....I do not exaggerate when I say that all our noble goals, all our aspirational imperatives, will be rubbished if this noose continues to be tightened around the necks of our smallest and poorest economies."
The PM returned on Monday.
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