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Singh Says No To SIB Stats
posted (September 1, 2015)
We also asked Singh to switch back to his other hat - the one as Chairman of Citrus Products of Belize Limited. Last week the Statistical Institute of Belize put out GDP figures for the first half of the year. And the second quarter had a sharp downturn because citrus deliveries for that period when compared to 2014 were down sharply. Singh says that is an incomplete picture:...

Jules Vasquez
"The primary downturn that attributed to the negative growth in GDP is citrus; 49% less concentrate for the secondary sector and in the primary sector 53% fewer oranges. Explain to me?"

Doug Singh, Chairman - CPBL
"Well we contacted the Statistical Institute to report to them that the information or the primary focus on the information was misinterpreted and I think that perhaps they need to look at the larger period. When they pointed that out, they were comparing the month of June with the previous year June. Citrus, it's not about what I sell this month, it's about what I sold for the period. So, if they took the entire 9 months and compared it with the previous 8 months, you would have seen very minimal change. But if you compare June last year to June this year and look at the revenue in that period, of course it would be different. Because it's a timing of sales. So what we may do, is we may stockpile some of the juice to our benefit, so that when the prices go up, we can sell it at a better price and farmers get more money. But we did that because we were trying to keep the inventory when the price was down at $1.09-$1.10, to see if we can get the price up and be able to sell it for their benefit. I am happy to report that the price is now at $1.30 and that as a percentage is a significant increase which will help towards that one million dollars that we are currently making. So a lot of it is the dynamics of timing, so the reporting did not reflect timing elements in the industry. I am here to report to you that that significant drop has not occurred in the industry. In fact, we have the same level of production. We have a higher pound solids in 2015 versus 2014. There is a lower price but they should just neutralize each other. So we should be on par revenue wise, foreign currency earning wise as we did in 2013/2014."

Reduced crude oil production at Spanish Lookout also drove down the GDP.

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