The success and sustainability of the Tilapia Hatchery Center in Central farm is now in the hands of the Government of Belize. On Friday, Taiwanese Ambassador Charles Liu officially handed over the center to the government. This marks the end of a 5 year training project between Belize and Taiwan. Here is a short excerpt of the handing over ceremony on Friday.
Hon. Godwin Hulse - Minister of Agriculture
"What the Taiwanese Government has afforded us to do and understand it was about 2.5 million US dollars, which is a quite a lot of money, to get this facility up, to provide a hatchery, to provide a space for us to grow in this industry. We cannot thank you enough. So thank you very much."
"The end product of course of all of this is marketing, its consumer acceptance of the product, it is our people working together and see it but private sector and public sector. This is a private/public partnership and there is shape here also for private/private partnership. There is space. private/private partnership in the sense of feed production. private/private partnership in the sense of marketing and of course public/private partnership through this facility, through our extension services, through our own continued research through, financing through agencies like the DFC and through continuing research and development."
"I am pushing and pushing for our foreign exchange, because as you know the Belize dollar is our local monopoly money, it goes nowhere. We have to have the US dollar or the Yuan or the Euro or some foreign currency that is traded internationally for us to buy the services and the products that we don't have in this country."
"Three months reserve is not good. Would want 3 years reserves or 30 years reserves then we are talking and it's only through projects like these that we market externally, that we can bring that foreign exchange."
H.E. Charles K. Y. Liu - Taiwanese Ambassador to Belize
"This joint venture is manifestation and a testimony to the philosophy for our bilateral collaboration, that is to walk jointly as partner to engage in aquacultures is far more effective and a better way than to give fish alone."
Over 250 Belizean farmers benefitted from this project.
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