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SIB Confirms GDP Contraction For Fourth Quarter
posted (March 29, 2017)

It’s no secret that Belize’s economy is in recession and today the Statistical Institute of Belize confirmed that Belize’s Gross Domestic Product contracted again in the last three months of 2016.  It’s the first time since 2011 that the fourth quarter has seen a contraction in economic growth. Some say it’s also the first time in decades that Belize has experienced four successive quarters of economic contraction.  Today the SIB explained why the GDP is down again:…

Angelita Campbell - Statistician II, SIB
"Belize produced goods and services totalling 666.7 million dollars for the period October to December 2016. What that indicates a decrease of 1.2% or roughly 7.9 million dollars in production. This graft shows the fluctuation in terms of percent value. In 2012 we had an increase of roughly 2.9 percent then in 2013 fourth quarter as had Banana showing a decrease of 30 percent and that was mainly due to the effect of Hurricane Earl and the exit of a major banana farm. We have within that category of agriculture hunting and forestry; we have livestock increasing 5 percent. We see swine going up by 2,200 more heads being produced while cattle went up roughly 1,300 more heads being produced. We also saw sugar cane delivery going up by roughly 21 percent. Fishing went down by 6.1 percent because there was a decrease in marine export over that period of roughly 79 thousand dollars. It's interesting to note however within the fish industry fourth quarter record an increase in production for shrimp as the shrimp industry recovers. Beverage on the other hand went down by 7.7 percent reflecting a decrease in both soft drinks production of roughly 16 percent and beer production marginally by 0.6 percent. It's interesting to also note within the same period, we saw an increase in importation of both beers and soft drinks."

It’s the first time in a while that we’ve seen beer production decline. Usually production increases are in the double digits.

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