BELIZE PROGRESSIVE PARTY: CHANGING THE SYSTEM IN BELIZE

“De-risking,” Cohen said, “is not the closing or restricting of an account because a financial institution, applying an appropriately designed risk-based analysis, determines that it cannot manage the risk of illicit activity associated with a particular client.” U.S. Department of the Treasury Urges Banks to Avoid ‘De-Risking’ As I said, it's all about Belize's ILLICIT RISK: U.S. Department of Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen expl

The People’s United Party (PUP) government of 1998-2003 went on a spending spree and ran the Belize economic ship into the reef, such that by 2004, internal and external forces pushed them into taking all kinds of austerity measures to take the ship off the reef. The discovery of crude oil in 2005 was their saving grace….the price of crude was around US$60/barrel and increased subsequently towards US$100/barrel…. by 2007-8 they were able to launch SuperBond I to consolidate a

"Of all the Caribbean countries, Belize has been the hardest hit by US banks terminating correspondent relations." Sir Ronald Sanders - Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States. From my layman's understanding of the whole de-risking, there are two types of risks: regulatory risk and illicit risk. I understand our banks are compliant with the regulatory. This leaves me to conclude that the US banks view Belize as an ILLICIT RISK! So then we need to honestly ask t

The local commercial bankers in Belize colluded with the regulators of the financial sector...convincing themselves that the world financial crisis of 2008 would not have negative impact on Belize...they said as much publicly within Belize, even as they understood and recognized the negative implications privately and at international forums. BUT the realities were very different... Many businesses that felt the impact through lower sales, higher costs and lower profits ran i