{
  "title": "Belize: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission",
  "publication": "IMF News, July 11, 2025",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/07/11/cs-belize-staff-concluding-statement-of-the-2025-article-iv-mission",
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  "summary": "An International Monetary Fund team led by Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov held discussions for the 2025 Article IV consultation with Belize during July 1—11. The team met with Mr. John Briceño, Prime Minister; Mr. Christopher Coye, Minister of State; Mr. Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary; Mr.",
  "publishDate": "2025-07-11",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Mission overview",
      "content": "- An IMF team led by Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov held the 2025 Article IV consultation with Belize during July 1—11.\n- Meetings included: Mr. John Briceño, Prime Minister; Mr. Christopher Coye, Minister of State; Mr. Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary; Mr. Kareem Michael, Governor of the Central Bank; other senior government officials, representatives of the opposition, the private sector, and labor unions."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Recent developments, outlook, and risks",
      "content": "- Recovery and social outcomes\n  - Real GDP expanded by a cumulative 27.6 percent between 2021 and 2023.\n  - Real GDP grew by 8.1 percent in 2024, driven by tourism, trade, and transport.\n  - Multidimensional poverty declined to 22 percent in 2024, from 36 percent in 2021.\n  - Primary fiscal balance improved to 1.7 percent of GDP in FY2024.\n  - Public debt fell to 61.1 percent of GDP by end-2024 from 103.3 percent of GDP in 2020, supported by a debt-for-marine protection swap and a negotiated discount on Petrocaribe debt.\n  - Financial stability risks have declined following accumulation of additional tier 1 capital among vulnerable banks and a decline in aggregate nonperforming loans.\n  - Staff’s preliminary analysis suggests Belize’s external position in 2024 was stronger than the level implied by fundamentals and desirable policies.\n- Near-term outlook and medium-term baseline\n  - Growth is projected to decelerate to 1.5 percent in 2025.\n  - Growth is expected to recover in 2026 and then converge to potential of about 2 percent over the medium term.\n  - Staff expects inflation to decline further to 1.3 percent over the medium term.\n  - Public debt is expected to fall more slowly as a percentage of GDP, reflecting slower nominal growth and higher spending on salaries.\n  - Current account deficit is expected to moderate to about 1.2 percent of GDP over the medium term.\n  - Staff projects a gradual increase in international reserves to about 4 months of imports, albeit not reaching the ARA metric by 2030.\n- Risks (assessed as tilted to the downside)\n  - External: higher global policy uncertainty, increased trade barriers, higher-for-longer global interest rates.\n  - Domestic: increased or sustained climate-related disasters damaging agriculture, energy, and tourism; economic slowdown raising financial sector risks.\n  - Upside: implementation of several large infrastructure projects (energy, utilities, transport) could push growth higher."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy priorities and recommendations",
      "content": "- Fiscal consolidation and debt reduction\n  - Reduce public sector debt to below 50 percent of GDP; staff advises gradually increasing the primary surplus to 2 percent of GDP by FY2026.\n  - Measures to support the primary surplus target:\n    - Greater revenue mobilization: broaden the base of the General Sales Tax, raise specific taxes and fees, and improve revenue administration.\n    - Reprioritization of current expenditure through reforms to the Pension Plan for Public Officials (PPPO) to reduce the present value of future deficits and lower fiscal risks.\n    - Expand priority spending on targeted social programs, infrastructure, and crime prevention.\n  - Combine adjustment with a broader medium-term fiscal strategy with clear targets and measures, improvements in public financial management, and a well-designed fiscal responsibility law with specific fiscal rules.\n- Structural reforms to boost potential growth and job creation\n  - Labor market and skills:\n    - Improve intermediation services to match job seekers to vacancies, engage private sector to reduce skill mismatches, introduce legislative amendments regarding seasonal migrant workers.\n    - Policies to increase female labor force participation, including enhancing childcare and education.\n  - Tourism sector bottlenecks:\n    - Develop road infrastructure to ease cross-district transportation and expand flight capacity to accelerate stayover arrivals growth.\n  - Improve business environment and productivity:\n    - Reforms to improve firms’ access to finance, streamline business license and permits processes, improve tax administration, and strengthen workforce education.\n- Financial sector and access to finance\n  - Strengthen currency peg by accumulating additional international reserves via:\n    - Successful structural reforms and fiscal consolidation.\n    - Gradual reduction in the central bank’s large stock of government securities.\n    - Develop domestic capital market, including introduction of a fully market-based auction for Treasury Notes.\n  - Improve private sector access to finance:\n    - Increase demand for credit: remove the regulatory 2½ percent floor on interest earned on savings deposits; support greater competition among domestic banks.\n    - Expand supply of credit: ensure banks have sufficient capital above regulatory requirement; operationalize the credit bureau; expand access to grants and non-debt instruments for early-stage firms.\n  - Operationalize the deposit insurance framework and improve coordination across regulatory agencies.\n- AML/CFT and financial integrity\n  - Build on CFATF January 2025 assessment: continue addressing remaining shortcomings, including finalizing and approving the National Risk Assessment, enhancing risk-based supervision, and strengthening collection of beneficial ownership information.\n- Disaster resilience and climate vulnerability\n  - Continue efforts to enhance resilience to natural disasters (rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, droughts, coastal erosion).\n  - Authorities’ initiatives: plans to invest in a battery energy storage system and renewable energy; developing a Climate Finance Strategy.\n  - Recommendation: adopt a Disaster Resilience Strategy to complement the National Preparedness and Response Plan to guide efforts and facilitate donor coordination.\n- Institutional and administrative reforms already underway\n  - Legislative amendments for electronic tax invoicing, new penalties for tax noncompliance, and requirement that all taxes are paid before sale of entities.\n  - Central bank reduced holdings of government securities and increased international reserves.\n  - Passage of the Fiscal Incentives Act and establishment of the collateral registry to improve firms’ access to credit.\n  - Central bank required vulnerable banks to accumulate additional tier 1 capital.\n  - Reforms to the PPPO have been delayed; authorities committed to further capacity development."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key projections and indicators (select figures from Table 1)",
      "content": "- Social and demographic\n  - Area (sq.km.): 22,860\n  - Human development index (rank), 2022: 118\n  - Population (thousands), 2024: 410.9\n  - Under-five mortality rate (per thousand), 2021: 11.2\n  - GDP per capita, (current US$), 2023: 7,587\n  - Unemployment rate (percent), April 2025: 2.1\n  - Life expectancy at birth (years), 2021: 70.5\n  - Multidimensional poverty (percent of population), 2024: 22.1\n- GDP growth (annual percent changes, calendar year)\n  - 2021: 17.7\n  - 2022: 9.7\n  - 2023: 1.1\n  - 2024: 8.1\n  - 2025 (projection): 1.5\n  - 2026 (projection): 2.4\n  - 2027 (projection): 2.2\n  - 2028 (projection): 2.0\n- Consumer prices (end of period)\n  - 2021: 4.9\n  - 2022: 6.7\n  - 2023: 3.7\n  - 2024: 2.6\n  - 2025 (projection): 1.3\n  - 2026 (projection, average): 1.9\n- Central government (percent of fiscal year GDP)\n  - Revenue and grants (most recent series): 22.5; 22.8; 23.2; 24.0; 24.7; 25.0\n  - Current non-interest expenditure (most recent series): 17.3; 16.4; 16.3; 16.2; 16.6; 17.1; 16.8\n  - Interest payment (most recent series): 1.7; 2.3\n  - Capital expenditure and net lending (most recent series): 5.2; 5.5; 7.3; 6.1; 7.4; 7.6; 6.4\n  - Primary balance (most recent series): 0.9; -0.5; 0.8; 0.6\n  - Overall balance (most recent series): -1.3; -0.8; -2.7; -1.2; -1.5; -1.8; -1.4\n- Public debt (percent of calendar year GDP)\n  - Public debt: 82.5; 66.8; 67.2; 61.1; 60.4; 59.3; 59.1; 58.7; 58.4; 58.0\n  - Domestic debt: 27.2; 23.1; 24.6; 22.2; 21.6; 20.5; 20.4; 20.6; 20.9; 21.2\n  - External debt: 55.3; 43.7; 42.6; 38.9; 38.8; 38.7; 38.1; 37.4; 36.8\n- External sector and reserves\n  - External current account (percent of GDP): -6.5; -8.3; -0.6\n  - Real effective exchange rate (+ = depreciation): -2.3; 2.8; 0.2\n  - Gross international reserves (US$ millions): 420; 482; 474; 498; 527; 566; 599; 637; 681; 721\n  - In months of imports (reserves): 3.8; 3.9; 4.0\n- Memorandum items\n  - Output gap (percent of potential output): -5.2; -0.3; -2.4; 0.4\n  - Nominal GDP (BZ$ millions): 4,841; 5,693; 6,134; 6,847; 7,046; 7,356; 7,610; 7,867; 8,125; 8,392\n\nSource: Belize: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission — International Monetary Fund.\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Belize and the IMF\n- IMF Policy Advice -- A Factsheet\n- Mission Concluding Statements\n- PRESS CENTER\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/07/11/cs-belize-staff-concluding-statement-of-the-2025-article-iv-mission"
    }
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    "Published: July 11, 2025",
    "An IMF team led by Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov held the 2025 Article IV consultation with Belize during July 1—11.",
    "Meetings included: Mr. John Briceño, Prime Minister; Mr. Christopher Coye, Minister of State; Mr. Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary; Mr. Kareem Michael, Governor of the Central Bank; other senior government officials, representatives of the opposition, the private sector, and labor unions.",
    "Recovery and social outcomes",
    "Near-term outlook and medium-term baseline",
    "Risks (assessed as tilted to the downside)",
    "Fiscal consolidation and debt reduction",
    "Structural reforms to boost potential growth and job creation",
    "Financial sector and access to finance",
    "AML/CFT and financial integrity",
    "Disaster resilience and climate vulnerability",
    "Institutional and administrative reforms already underway",
    "Social and demographic",
    "GDP growth (annual percent changes, calendar year)",
    "Consumer prices (end of period)",
    "Central government (percent of fiscal year GDP)",
    "Public debt (percent of calendar year GDP)",
    "External sector and reserves",
    "Memorandum items",
    "[Belize and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/BLZ/index.htm)",
    "[IMF Policy Advice -- A Factsheet](https://www.imf.org/en/about/factsheets/imf-surveillance)",
    "[Mission Concluding Statements](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)",
    "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)"
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