Posted: Thursday, December 14, 2023. 8:13 pm CST.
By Aaron Humes: Through October of 2023, Belize imported $2.242 billion of merchandise while exporting $361.5 million, down 17.5 percent or $76.8 million from the same period last year, when exports were valued at $438.3 million. Imports were down only slightly (0.3 percent or $6.8 million) from 2022.
The headline import of 2023 is instant noodles, according to statistician Tiffany Vasquez of the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB): “For this period, January to October 2023, when you compare that to 2022, it grew by 80 percent and that is one of the largest increases we have ever seen for this period. We saw that increase as well in 2021, something similar, and now in 2023 but [before] that, within this period we didn’t see an increase like that.”
Owing to larger imports of orange concentrate, coupled with higher costs for margarine and evaporated milk, costs of imports in the ‘Food and Live Animals’ category went up by $18.9 million, from $232.7 million to $251.6 million. Other increasing categories were machinery and transport equipment (power cables, GPS systems, and curiously a donation of an airplane to Belize by the United States); other manufactures (surveying equipment, plastic bottles, and gaming machines); and crude materials (treated pine lumber).
The waning of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a reduction in imports of diagnostic testing kits and vaccines, while activity at the Commercial Free Zones has slowed by about $20 million.
Belize is actually importing less premium fuel and with cheaper acquisition costs, import costs for mineral fuels and lubricants tumbled by close to $19 million.
As for exports, combinations of disease and disinterest cut profits from exports of bananas ($22 million); marine products, mainly whole lobster, lobster tail, and conch ($12.8 million); orange concentrate and oil ($11 million); sugar ($8.1 million) and petroleum ($1.7 million), as well as animal feed, molasses, and red kidney beans.
In the month of October, Belize imported $243 million in goods, $8.5 million less than in October 2022, while exporting just $28.5 million, down by 28.8 percent or $11.5 million when compared to exports for October 2022, which were valued at $40.1 million
In October of this year, there were no exports of lobster products to the European Union and, as a result, revenues from this region declined from $8.1 million to just under $5 million. Earnings from Central America dropped from $5.9 million in October 2022 to nearly $3 million in October 2023 on account of decreased sales of animal feed, while a drop in revenues from the United States, from $7.5 million to $4.9 million, was attributed to reduced exports of conch and molasses. In addition, no sugar was exported to the United Kingdom during the month, causing earnings from that nation to fall from $8.2 million in October of last year to $6.5 million in October of this year. Revenues from Mexico went down from $1.9 million to $0.7 million, mainly due to a reduction in exports of cattle and crude soybean oil. On the other hand, earnings from ‘Other Countries’ went up slightly from $1.5 million to $1.8 million, as the month saw increased exports of lobster tails to Australia.
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The post Ramen noodles see 80 percent increase as imports pass $2.2 billion in 2023; exports hurting appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
Posted: Thursday, December 14, 2023. 8:13 pm CST. By Aaron Humes: Through October of 2023, Belize imported $2.242 billion of merchandise while exporting $361.5 million, down
The post Ramen noodles see 80 percent increase as imports pass $2.2 billion in 2023; exports hurting appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
