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Jules Vasquez - 7News
"Last year's forecast had Belize at, I believe, 2% percent growth for 2016, or a little over 2%, and we see that the outturn for Belize is -1.2%, are you able to speak about what accounts for the disparity between forecasts projected and real."

Dr. Justin Ram - Director of Economics, CDB
"So yes our forecast for Belize earlier in 2016 was positive, however a number of events occurred throughout the year. Number one of those, well the effects of the hurricane as well provided some damper to the overall growth prospects; in addition to that there were disease effects in the agricultural sector which also affected shrimp farming as well in Belize. So that meant that production and those particular sectors were much less than we were actually predicting. In addition to that, the government of Belize also had to intervene in two state owned enterprises, as you would be aware, and that also had some negative effects on overall government expenditure and has actually now led to a massive increase in governments overall debt burden."

"Let me also say something about the tourism industry, which has actually been keeping the Belizean economy afloat as of now. There is real potential there for that industry to take off but what we find when we look at the data, is that because of the peg of the dollar to the United States dollar and the overall strengthening of the US dollar, that has actually now had a negative impact on the overall competitiveness of the Belizean tourism sector, certainly for visitors who are visiting from other parts of the world."

The Bank also announced today that has approved funding for a feasibility study for upgrading the coastal highway upgrading in Belize. Belize is one of the three countries who benefit most from CDB funding. On Monday we'll have more form Barbados asBank President Warren explains why he's very hopeful for the Belizean economy.