Belize Plans Its First Industrial Strategy Around Sea and Soil

Economy

Key Facts

—The plan. Belize is drafting its first-ever national industrial strategy, built around green and blue industries.

—The partner. It is being developed with the UN’s industrial development agency, UNIDO.

—The sectors. Six value chains are prioritised, from cacao and coconut to seaweed and boatbuilding.

—The goal. The aim is to diversify an economy long reliant on tourism and basic farming.

—The latest step. Officials completed a study tour of Japan in early July to learn from its industries.

Belize, a country better known for reefs and rainforest than for factories, is trying to reinvent how it makes money. It is drafting its first national industrial strategy, built not around smokestacks but around its sea and soil.

The plan is deliberately different from the old model of heavy industry. It centres on what officials call green and blue industries, meaning businesses that add value to the country’s land and marine resources without wrecking them.

For a foreign reader, the interest is in the ambition of a tiny state. With a population of around 400,000, Belize is trying to graduate from selling raw commodities to making higher-value goods.

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What the industrial strategy targets

The strategy singles out six priority value chains. Three are green and rooted in the land, three are blue and drawn from the sea, each chosen for its potential to grow and create better jobs.

On the green side, the focus is familiar but underdeveloped. It covers cacao and chocolate, coconut products, and bio-based industries such as bioenergy, compostable materials and agro-processing.

The blue side leans on the ocean. Here the bets are on seaweed farming, fisheries and aquaculture, and boatbuilding, sectors that play to Belize’s long coastline and the largest reef in the hemisphere.

The common thread is value addition. Rather than exporting raw cocoa beans or fish, the idea is to process them at home, capturing more of the profit and the employment.

Why Belize wants to diversify

The motivation is an old vulnerability. Belize’s economy leans heavily on tourism and basic agriculture, sectors exposed to hurricanes, global downturns and swings in commodity prices.

Tourism alone accounts for a large share of output and jobs. That concentration leaves the country badly exposed whenever visitor numbers fall, as they did sharply during the pandemic.

The wider regional mood reinforces the push. Development banks have urged Latin America and the Caribbean to rebuild productive industry rather than rely on imports, debt and raw exports.

The industrial plan is not the only reinvention under way. The government is separately drafting a strategy for what it calls the orange economy, covering creative and digital services, another attempt to move beyond commodities.

Belize also enters this from a position of monetary calm. Its dollar has been pegged at two to the US dollar for fifty years, a rare anchor of stability that officials hope makes the country an easier place to invest.

A strategy still being built

This is a work in progress, not a finished plan. The project began with a UN scoping mission in 2023, moved through preliminary research presented in May, and is still being shaped into a final strategy.

The most recent step took officials abroad. A Belizean delegation completed a week-long study tour of Japan in early July, examining its work in seaweed processing, aquaculture, biotechnology and industrial policy.

Japan is a telling teacher. A resource-poor island nation that built advanced industries around technology and the sea offers a model Belize hopes to adapt to its own, far smaller, scale.

The eventual test will be delivery. A strategy on paper is easy; the hard part, for a small state with thin finances, is turning cacao and seaweed into real factories, exports and jobs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Belize’s industrial strategy?

It is the country’s first national industrial strategy, developed with the UN industrial development agency UNIDO. Built around green and blue industries, it prioritises six value chains, from cacao and coconut to seaweed and boatbuilding, to diversify the economy beyond tourism and basic farming.

Why does Belize need to diversify?

Its economy relies heavily on tourism and basic agriculture, leaving it exposed to hurricanes, downturns and commodity-price swings. Adding value to local land and marine resources aims to create higher-value goods, better jobs and more resilient exports.

Has the strategy been launched yet?

Not yet, as the strategy is still being developed, having moved from a 2023 scoping mission through preliminary research presented in May. Officials completed a study tour of Japan in early July as one of the latest steps toward a final plan.