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27 Feb 2024
Belize: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2024 Article IV Mission
Belize's economy has continued to perform well. After growing strongly by 17.9 percent in 2021 and 8.7 percent in 2022, real GDP is estimated to have continued to grow robustly by 4.5 percent in 2023 led by the expansion of the tourism, construction, retail and wholesale trade, transport, and business process outsourcing sectors. As a result, real GDP was 16 percent above pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and the unemployment rate declined from 14 percent in 2020 to 3.4 percent in 2023. The fiscal position also strengthened. Public debt fell from 103 percent of GDP in 2020 to 66 percent in 2023, driven by strong nominal GDP growth, a substantial improvement in the primary fiscal balance, a debt for marine protection swap with The Nature Conservancy, and a discount in Belize's Petrocaribe debt with Venezuela.
