Last October 29, it was announced by Prime Minister Dean Barrow that the economy of Belize is officially in a state of recession. Technically, a recession means a contraction of the national economy for two consecutive quarters. With this in effect, it becomes important to put some theories into action and start combatting the recession.
But we haven't heard anything about weathering the storm after the announcement. All we know is that we should all tighten our belts if we want to survive this crisis. In relation to this, last Friday, the City Council of Belize City held an economic summit to discuss the ways by which we can solve the crisis. During the summit, everyone agreed that the old capital can get past through this, but we have to take a national approach towards it.
Jose Sanchez of Channel5Belize.com attended the summit and made a report about it. According to the report, Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya Flowers, the Council understands that business activity has become slower in recent months, prompting them to organize the summit and ask the recommendations of the business community as to which policies shoulud be adopted.
Meanwhile, Senator Godwin Hulse is insisting that there should be a focus on production, particularly agricultural production as food is becoming more and more in demand these days, resulting to food prices shooting up despite the recession.
Finally, James Scott of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce said that businessmen feel that there is inadequacy in tax collection, making it unequitable for the rest of the industry. If this gets addressed, he believes that it will be much better for the city to balance the budget.
All in all, the members of the summit believes that it is about time that the national government listens to the pleas of the individual cities and step in to resolve the problem, They all said that it is about time for the national government to host a national economic summit.
