Speaking to reporters, Briceño, who was accompanied by senior officials from Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), described the talks in Cancun as “very successful and fruitful” and said the Mexican energy provider will now supply 75 megawatts to the national grid.
BEL said it had been forced to implement power interruptions throughout the country after indicating that the power plant in Mexico cannot meet the high electricity demand here.
According to BEL, daily electricity demand levels have varied between 85 megawatts (MW) and 125 MW throughout the day over the past few weeks, while in-country capacity is currently a maximum of 93 MW.
“When I met with the President in Mexico City, he invited me to join him in Cancun, where he looks at the Tren Maya project every two weeks. And so he invited different ministries and the head of CFE to meet with us,” Prime Minister Briceño said.
“We had a chance to meet with the President and the head of the CFE, and they have agreed to work with us to continue to provide energy. As you know, well, probably most people don’t know, we have a maximum of 55 megawatts of energy that we can buy.”
But Briceño said Mexico has “offered “ to increase the capacity by 20 megawatts, “ so we’ll be able to buy approximately 75 megawatts, and we’ll be working with CFE now to run a second line into Belize.”
Prime Minister Briceño, who was accompanied by his Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise Minister, Jose Abelardo Mai, said they discussed issues such as cattle exportation and the contrabanding of Belizean sugar with other Mexican government officials.
”As you all know, a lot of our sugar is being contraband into the Chetumal region, creating shortages for us. The President agreed that he’d talk with the Minister of Economy so that we could look at the tariff regime, expect to reduce it, and then give us a certain quota to export sugar into [Mexico].
“We spoke about cattle. The presidential decree has ended, and we’re looking at expanding it so that we can continue to export cattle into Mexico. We also looked at coconuts, a new industry in Belize, and we’ll be working with… and the Minister of Agriculture was there with me. They will start the discussions as to how we’d be able to get our coconuts, following the requirements from Mexico, and so we spoke also about that and shrimp,” Briceño added.
Meanwhile, the government has removed the border tax for Mexican visitors entering Belize.
The Cabinet has also agreed to allow Mexican visitors to use their insurance in Belize, with Belmopan saying that it’s all in an effort to facilitate easier access and movement into the country.
“Our Cabinet has agreed to lift or to provide the cards for the Mexicans free of charge so they could come into Belize easily, remove the border tax, and also be able to use their insurance in Belize. We’re doing this so that we can be able to make it easier for Mexicans to visit Belize,” Prime Minister Briceño said.
He told reporters he is “very grateful to President AMLO, as everybody knows him, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“I also met with the Governor from Quintana Roo, who was also there. We had several discussions. There’s an interest in the port because now that Chetumal is going to be a duty-free area, all the goods will have to come in through the Belize port,” he said, adding, “I extended an invitation to the Governor. We expect that he’d be able to come on a working visit in maybe a month or two.”
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