Dr. Osmond Martinez Embraces New Role in Ministry of Foreign Trade, Highlights Development-Trade Link

The media also asked Martinez about his new role in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and how he plans to embrace the opportunity. As an economist with a background in finance, he says this will serve him well in his new mandate. He explained that development and trade go hand in hand, so it isn’t a major shift from his area of expertise.

Dr.Osmond Martinez, Minister of State (Foreign Trade): “I think that the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Finance they complement one another and the Ministry of Economic Development. It requires a lot of, when you look at economic development it’s not only about grants. That is one of the things that we champion. It’s also about planning, about coordination, it’s about dictating the pace of economic growth and development. It’s about data analysis. In this case now we’ll be doing maybe executing now what we were doing and all the planning and coordination that was being done at the Ministry of Economic Development now at the Ministry of Foreign Trade we will be able to implement it because there is a trade deficit for example that needs, a gap that needs to be closed. There is more opportunities in terms of negotiating with our countries. There is also the investments in terms of getting the Pacific corridor and the Atlantic corridor connected through Belize. Also all these connections in terms of using Belize or geographically Belize is well positioned to become a good trading partner for the Southern part of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and so these are the things that we need to look at that now it’s about implementing what we have planned and coordinated at the Ministry of Economic Development and Finance.”

Dr. Martinez was sworn into office yesterday.