Dear Sir,
I am no world class economist, just a common sense businessman, but from my point of view, Belizean shoppers are holding the wrong end of the stick when buying in Mexico.
Again, my point of view: Mexico is our largest trading partner because of cross-border trading. The demand for Mexican pesos because of this is unbelievable, outstripping supply. We all know demand causes prices to rise, thus the peso gets expensive.
At Mexican banks the U.S. dollar is quoted at $12.43 pesos, at $2.05 approximately for $1.00 U.S.
At the banks in Belize, we should be getting 6.06 pesos to $1.00 Bze.
Not so; our dollar fetches between 5.8 and 5.9 pesos. When you consider the millions of Belize dollars spent in Mexico, you know we are being shortchanged.
We cannot stop the people from shopping there because this is our fundamental democratic right. Government’s job is to find out how we can put value to our currency.
Easy, just make our Belize dollar acceptable in the Corozal Free Zone. Once this creates a demand for our dollar, we will be on equal standing, at least at the northern border. Your dollar is not worth much when not even your own people can accept it.
I would very much encourage our government to at least experiment with this, which I feel will save us tons of money in trading with Mexico.
On another note, when Mexicans purchase at Sam’s Club and other business places on the American side of the border, they have the privilege of claiming back the sales tax they paid on their goods being taken to Mexico. That’s a lot of money, bro.
Someone in government should encourage Sam’s Club in Chetumal to try this, since our people love to shop there. I’ve tried talking to the people at Sam’s but they are reluctant.
A while back I read in the Mexican newspapers that they would have provided these facilities for tourists, but it never materialised. Maybe the Mexican Consul in Belize can do something about this.
Regards,
R. Cuello