Belize’s newly released trade data, current to October 2009, indicates that both export earnings and import purchases dropped substantially in the first 10 months of 2009, compared with the same period in 2008, according to the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB).
The petroleum sector, which netted $204 million between January and October 2008 from the sale of 37.6 million gallons of sweet crude, plunged to $96.9 million for the same months in 2009, with trade prices falling by more than half, on average.
Even though the volume of petroleum exports increased by 21 percent, earnings dropped by over 50 percent—$107 million.
Sugar netted the next highest earnings among Belize’s major domestic exports. The good news there is that the country earned 25 percent more from an increase of 17 percent in the amount of sugar exported—$89 million in earnings from 79 million tons of sugar.
Earnings from orange concentrate dropped by 32 percent, but grapefruit earnings increased 50 percent—still not enough to bring a net increase for the citrus sector.
Earnings from bananas were reportedly the same $57 million for the first 10 months, as compared to the previous year.
The total earned by domestic exports in the first 10 months was 19.6 percent less than the previous year—$422 million versus $525 million.
Belize’s import bill was more than double the export earnings—at 260 percent, indicating that the trade deficit continues to loom large.
Belize imported $1.1 billion worth of goods for January to October 2009, 23 percent less than the previous year. The biggest tab was for machinery and transport equipment at quarter-billion dollars. The fuel, lubricants and crude materials bill was next highest at $184 million.
Belize’s economy contractedby 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009, marking the third consecutive quarterly decline for 2009.
The SIB said, “…It is nonetheless a modest improvement over the 1.9 percent dip in the second quarter and the 2.2 percent in the first quarter.”
It continued saying, “The weak third-quarter performance underscores the lingering effects of the global economic crisis, particularly on the service sectors.”
SIB said wholesale and retail trade contracted by 7.4% due mostly to a 21.8% drop in imports.
The hotels and restaurants sector contracted 5.4%, which reflects declines in overnight tourist arrivals and tourist expenditures.
“Meanwhile, the transportation sector fell by 1.4 percent, due mostly to lower levels of activity in distribution trade and tourism,” the institute added.
On a positive note, manufacturing expanded by 1.7 percent, buoyed by a 25 percent increase in oil production. The agriculture sector also rebounded, after two quarters of decline, by 12.3 percent, largely due to the upswing in banana production.
The rate of inflation slowed considerably from positive 6.4 percent in 2008 to a negative 1.1 percent in 2009. “This accounted for the lowest inflation rate in more than a decade,” the SIB said. Food prices, commented the SIB, rose by 1.6 percent, compared to 13.3 percent in 2008.