Western Hemisphere > Belize

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International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper provides an overview of Belize’s tourism sector and main achievements and discusses the country’s comparative advantages and bottlenecks in tourism. It also analyzes the impact of structural and institutional reforms on tourist arrivals. The outturns in tourism have significantly exceeded targets set in the authorities’ National Sustainable Tourism Masterplan (NSTMP). The implementation of the NSTMP reforms has supported the tourism sector’s expansion. In order to guide the development of the tourism sector, the NSTMP 2011 proposes reforms and targets to propel Belize into an internationally recognized tourist destination by 2030. The emergence of the shared economy business model has also brought new challenges, in addition to opportunities. The benefits of the peer-to-peer accommodation available to customers on digital platforms include the expansion of tourism product, service, and sector offerings; improved access to market; and opportunities for income generation. It is imperative that reforms in the near term should focus on addressing the impact of recurring natural hazards, infrastructure bottlenecks, fortifying the institutional and governance framework, reducing crime, and mitigating concerns relating to the shared economy.
International Monetary Fund
Belize’s economy is projected to decelerate in 2009 owing to the global downturn. Real GDP growth is projected at 1 percent, reflecting the impact of declining tourism, remittances, and foreign direct investment inflows. Executive Directors have welcomed the broadly favorable economic performance in 2008, and have commended the authorities’ commitment to pursue sound macroeconomic and financial sector policies to manage near-term risks. Directors have also emphasized that strong macroeconomic policies are necessary to underpin this exchange rate regime and help raise international reserves to a comfortable level.
Mr. Sanjaya P Panth
,
Mr. Paul Cashin
, and
Mr. W. A Bauer
The Caribbean has made substantial progress in recent years in implementing economic reforms, both at the national and regional level. The Caribbean: Enhancing Economic Integration examines the product of the efforts made by Caribbean policymakers to strengthen regional cooperation and integration, which has yielded economic transformation and tighter integration with the global economy. This volume discusses regional financial integration as a means of deepening financial systems and raising regional growth; the relationship between tax incentives and investment, where harmonized regional action is important in seeking to overcome collective actions problems; and the consequences for the Caribbean of the erosion of trade preferences in key export markets. The book is based on empirical research carried out as part of the IMF's regional surveillance work in the Caribbean.
International Monetary Fund
CARTAC, the second of the regional technical assistance centers, was created with singular emphasis on ownership of technical assistance by the beneficiary countries. To this end, it was structured as a UNDP project with the IMF as Executing Agency and with a Steering Committee empowered to give strategic guidance to the program and select its senior staff from short lists provided by the IMF. With the spread of the RTAC modality, the IMF has sought to bring the Centers' activities within the ambit of overall resource planning for technical assistance, ensure consistency with the institution's view on priorities for technical assistance in the countries concerned, and tighten quality control through backstopping. This has created the potential for conflict with the relative independence that CARTAC has enjoyed from its inception. The conclusion in this report, however, is that alignment with the IMF does not necessarily undermine country ownership and that the Steering Committee can play a pivotal role in defusing any tension that may arise.
International Monetary Fund
CARTAC, the second of the regional technical assistance centers, was created with singular emphasis on ownership of technical assistance by the beneficiary countries. To this end, it was structured as a UNDP project with the IMF as Executing Agency and with a Steering Committee empowered to give strategic guidance to the program and select its senior staff from short lists provided by the IMF. With the spread of the RTAC modality, the IMF has sought to bring the Centers' activities within the ambit of overall resource planning for technical assistance, ensure consistency with the institution's view on priorities for technical assistance in the countries concerned, and tighten quality control through backstopping. This has created the potential for conflict with the relative independence that CARTAC has enjoyed from its inception. The conclusion in this report, however, is that alignment with the IMF does not necessarily undermine country ownership and that the Steering Committee can play a pivotal role in defusing any tension that may arise.
International Monetary Fund
Belize’s near-term macroeconomic prospects have improved over the past year. The main risks to growth and financial stability arise from fiscal challenges and deterioration in the global outlook. Despite data limitations that constrain the analysis, the Belize dollar appears broadly in line with fundamentals, and the external accounts are not a threat to external stability. Progress in consolidating the public sector’s financial position needs to continue. A front-loaded fiscal adjustment is necessary to lower Belize’s debt ratios and regain market access.
International Monetary Fund
Belize should reduce debt ratios to comfortable levels for smooth market access, and reduce liquidity risks by stabilizing debt service. Streamlined management of the oil fund should be considered. Fiscal measures should compensate for the loss of oil revenues in the budget and avoid new borrowing. This note explores alternative measures of reserves adequacy and concludes that a reserves target of three months of imports is a reasonable benchmark. Reforms enabling more effective liquidity management involve removing the ceilings and moving to market-based interest rates.
Koffie Ben Nassar
Motivated by the concern that corporate income tax (CIT) competition may have eroded the tax base, this paper calculates average effective tax rates to measure the impact of CIT competition, including the widespread use of tax holidays, on the tax base for 15 countries in the Caribbean. The results not only confirm erosion of the tax base, but also show that CIT holidays must be removed for recent tax policy initiatives (such as accelerated depreciation, loss carry forward provisions, and tax harmonization) to be effective. These findings suggest that the authorities should either avoid granting CIT holidays or rely more on other taxes (including consumption taxes such as the value-added tax) in order to broaden the tax base.