Feb 11, 2021 Budget Consultations Continue, G.O.B. Meets with B.N.T.U. The government continued budget consultations today, preparing for the presentation of the budget in March. Today, a team of high-level ministers met with the Belize National Teachers Union. Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde and Ministers Francis Fonseca and Henry Charles Usher sat down with B.N.T.U. National President Senator Elena Smith and members of the executive. The government made presentations regarding the state of the nation’s economy. It has been a continuous declaration of the new administration that the country is in a financial chokehold. This evening the government released an Analysis of the State of the Nation’s Economy. The report states that Belize’s unemployment rate is more than triple the average unemployment rate throughout the Caribbean and more than quadruple that of Central America; that government revenues fell by almost thirty percent or over three hundred million dollars in 2020, and at one hundred and thirty-four point one percent, Belize now has the highest debt-to-G.D.P. ratio in the entire Caribbean and Central American region. The Briceño Administration says that it took the Barrow Administration one year to rack up a debt of over five hundred million dollars in 2020. Government debt has increased by almost two billion dollars. Prime Minister John Briceño and his P.U.P. government have the challenge of reviving the economy. Prime Minister John Briceño will present his first fiscal budget in a few weeks, so consultations with social partners in the public and private sectors are being held. Deputy Prime Minister Hyde says the meeting today was fruitful.