Belize and El Salvador Near Agreement on Economic Partnership, Foreign Minister Updates

The Briceno Administration is hoping to finalize a partial scope agreement with the Government of El Salvador. The leaders of both nations recently met and discussed the economic benefits of building a stronger trade relationship. Last year, the government held the first round of negotiations for the agreement to establish a deeper diplomatic, economic, and socio-cultural alliance. Yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Francis Fonseca, provided an update on the agreement.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs: “The Prime Minister had an excellent meeting with President Bukele. I was there with him. You know, I think there’s a lot that can happen between Belize and Salvador. There’s an opportunity for increased trade, increased tourism. Agriculture is one area that we’re looking at as well. So I think it was an excellent discussion, an excellent productive meeting. In terms of the partial scope agreement, yeah. No, we’ve made significant progress on that. We’re now, we finished the second round of negotiations. So there is, the third round is coming up I think sometime in August or so, the third round is scheduled to come up. So we’ve gone a long way in terms of what we want to achieve there. And I think coming out of the third round we’ll be able to have some conclusion to the partial scope agreement. So I think sometime this year we’ll be able to conclude that.”

Key objectives are aimed at reducing financial burdens on businesses and fostering a dynamic economic relationship.