President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced Saturday that Mexico will suspend tariffs with Belize to export agricultural products, beef and other staple foods without paying taxes.
“We have just taken the agreement with the Prime Minister (John Briceño) for Mexico to eliminate its tariffs on products that Belize can export to our country. Tariffs are suspended, we will implement true free trade between our nations,” he said.
Read: Grain production, suspending tariffs and more road safety, AMLO’s plan to curb inflation
The president assured that with this measure “an authentic free trade between our nations” will be put into practice.
On a tour of Central America, López Obrador announced that Belize joined the Sembrando Vida program and spoke of the need to advance in a continental integration of all America, similar to that of the European Economic Community.
“With a united, twinned America, we can cope with the turbulence of the world economy, and most importantly, the geopolitical danger posed to the entire world by america’s economic decline vis-à-vis other regions.”
Likewise, López Obrador highlighted Belize’s decision to regularize more than 40,000 migrants “who live and work honestly in Belize and who are originally from Central American countries, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. We are talking about a historic decision but above all a humanist dimension of the first order.”
Both Mexico and Belize committed to exchange experiences and good practices in transport and infrastructure and instructed the competent authorities to hold technical meetings to explore the feasibility of linking the Maya Train, one of the main infrastructure and development projects for southeastern Mexico, with Belize.
AMLO backs electricity reform in Honduras
Yesterday, López Obrador supported a reform of the electricity sector planned by the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, to lower consumer costs, a proposal that was initially criticized by the United States.
“We support President Xiomara Castro’s electricity reform initiative for the benefit of the people of Honduras, especially the majority of the people, who will have the possibility of having cheap electricity,” he said.
The project for a structural reform of the electric power sector, sent this month by the government of the leftist Castro to Congress, seeks to guarantee the service as a “public good of national security” and a “human right of an economic and social nature.”
The initiative involves reviewing contracts with power generators to lower the price per kilowatt hour. And in case of disagreement, it authorizes to “raise the termination of the contractual relationship and the acquisition by the State” paying the “justiprecio” of the plants.
This initiative was criticized by the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, who expressed concern about the “effect” of the proposal “on foreign investment and the independence of the energy regulatory agency.”
With information from AFP
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