Belize Investment Summit 2023: Unlocking Opportunities with Keynote Speaker Ivan Duque Marquez

Come Wednesday the 2nd Belize Investment Summit will be officially opened at the Grand Caribe Resort in San Pedro. It is an event hosted by the Government of Belize with an aim to foster investment, showcase the investment opportunities as well as inspire existing businesses to expand.  The event is slated to take place every two years with the first held in 2021.  For this year’s summit, former President of Colombia, Ivan Duque Marquez, will be arriving in Belize to deliver the keynote address.  In some quarters, Marquez has been reviewed as a leader that created investor-friendly policies under his term as president.  Love News understands that one of the key factors that Marquez will be promoting is the Orange Economy, one that aligns with what Belize is looking to explore and nurture.  According to the Executive Director of Beltraide, Dr Leroy Almendarez, Marquez has been very vocal on the importance of the orange economy.

Dr.Leroy Almendarez, Executive Director, BELTRAIDE: “This year, our keynote speaker or guest speaker is the former president of Columbia the honorable Ivan Duque Marquez and one of the things that he has been focusing a lot on is the orange economy. Now, if I may say, what is the orange economy? Because for some they’re saying, well okay orange economy. The orange economy, and he has done a lot of extensive work in terms of looking at how, you know really changes in terms of employment and contributions to the wealth of a country, its gross domestic product, how that has changed. I mean he’s spoken about growth like 134 percent, but what makes that up? And believe me, I enjoy this quote where he references the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill where he says the “next empire will be an emperor of the mind.” So it’s the creativity within you, that creativity and that creativity burns like fire and the color of fire is orange. And therefore for us to brand there’s already a green branding and a blue branding. So orange economy, an empire of the mind and there’s so many individuals who are engaged, but too often they don’t see themselves, you know, really as a business. So it does require not only highlighting, but capacity building, building models because you must understand what the market needs. Don’t just put something out there. Use your creative instincts, your creative abilities, your innovation to differentiate what you already do. And so this is what we will be highlighting.”

With a view that multiple industries in Belize are being marketed to the potential investors and guests, we asked Dr Almendarez why Ambergris Caye is being used again as the venue.

Dr.Leroy Almendarez, Executive Director, BELTRAIDE: “We have to, somebody has to decide they want to invest in conference tourism. We need areas that can accommodate quite a number of individuals, at least more than 500, but it must be in an area where it allows for other logistics to be worked out, things like parking etc. We visited another part of the country, wanted to take it to the south but when we went out there, you know, to do the analysis it would not have been ready. It’s not that we really wanted to go back to San Pedro so that even when we approach the proprietors of San Pedro it’s not like they were saying, okay fine, come back to us they knew that was not our intention. But in terms of logistics, in terms of proximity, in terms of security, because our prime minister and other ministers will be there, you know, President Duque will be there, high dignitaries from the IDB and all those individuals who will be there. This is the space, there’s one space that can hold the 500 individuals. So that’s the reason why we are going back to San Pedro.”

As is, the Belize Investment Summit 2023, is bringing a boost to the economy as all 500 VIP and Ultra VIP packages have been sold out to both local and international investors.  A team from our newsroom will be traveling to the island to deliver live reports from the summit.