Belize Investment Summit Highlights New Opportunities

The Belize Investment Summit is on its final day on Ambergris Caye.  Today’s agenda featured another edition of the ministers’ panel, this time, with a focus on attracting high-quality investments in Belize’s priority sectors.  Among those taking part is the Minister of New Growth Industries, Kareem Musa.  In his presentation, Musa focused on proven instances where Belize is open for new money, and where we are in the area of new industries.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries: “Focusing on the three areas that President Duque highlighted I thought that to be an incredible presentation by President Duque putting us in that frame of mind of the blue, orange and green economies and if I may just touch in terms of the green economy we are proceeding with hemp. We are focusing our attention over the last year on manufacturing and processing not just fiber and grain but also CBD. And so there’s a lot of potential there in terms of processing. I spoke to a lot of groups over the last two days who are very engaged and interested and so I look forward to greater partnership in the development of our hemp industry. In terms of our orange economy, and this is absolutely exciting, we have the film industry CEO Garcia as you might have heard from our film commissioner, we are presenting legislation in a very short time that will provide for the types of incentives that you might have heard President Duque highlight, the incentives that we need to offer to these industries so that they can come and capture the absolute beauty of our country. Just last year, if any of you are into love stories like me and Honorable Cordell Hyde, you might have seen a movie on Hallmark called Caribbean Summer. That movie was filmed right here in Belize in the southern part of our country in Placencia. Absolutely gorgeous footage and just that one film, that one Hallmark film, they spent over $2 million right in Placencia in a span of three months during a season that was not high. And so that again, we just need to create the enabling environment within the film industry with this legislation.”