Photo: Artist impression of iTel’s new location in Belize coming October 2023 (Credit: Jamaica Observer)
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Apr. 17, 2023
A Jamaican giant in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which started out in 2012 and has since expanded to 9 Latin American and Caribbean countries with 6,000 employees, is working to significantly expand its Belize operations. Itel first partnered with an existing BPO in Belize last year to begin a pilot with 100 employees in June. According to the Jamaica Observer, iTel is making a US $2.5 million capital investment to retrofit its own facility in Belize City and signed an agreement with its new landlord a couple weeks ago. It is projected to be a 40,000-square- foot complex in a prime location (yet undisclosed) in the Old Capital. Once the infrastructure works are completed in October 2023, the company plans to hire 500 employees. The expectation is to have 800 employees by the end of 2024.
The Jamaica Observer quotes the founding chairman and CEO of iTel, Yoni Epstein, as saying that they want to tap into benefits from Belize’s special Export Processing Zone, including “among other benefits, a 20-year tax holiday from income tax, withholding tax, capital gains tax or any new corporate tax.” Epstein revealed to the paper that an existing client of iTel in Guyana and Honduras made a request for the company to come into Belize and manage their options here. Epstein also remarked on the success of the Belize pilot, saying it has “consistently exceeded client expectations and shown the kind of sustainable success that supports the company’s expansion strategies”.
In confirming the news today, Prime Minister John Briceño told Amandala that more and more BPOs are setting up in Belize. He commented, “I think in 2019 we had probably about 1,500 employees in the BPO sector, and because of the changes that we’ve done and the work that we’ve been doing – we’ve been encouraging it – we expect to have maybe as much as 12,000 Belizeans working in the BPO sector. You may not believe me, but we are having a tight labour market right now – that people are having difficulty in getting people to work.”
Notably, iTel has further interest in setting up another site in Belize to “take advantage of Spanish language capabilities resident in the populations living near to borders Belize shares with Mexico and Guatemala.”