During this period significant investments were financed in the housing, tourism, agriculture and services sector. In addition to expanding home ownership and enterprise development, thus creating thousands of jobs, millions were provided with student loans to Belizeans pursuing higher education.

Consider the following. In 2005 the DFC’s debt was some $528.5 million. Today it is less than $140 million. The DFC has gotten no subsidy from the Government since 2005. The delinquent debt has been reduced from $148.9 million to less than $50 million. And there are presently several law suits pending in the Courts to recover the balance of big debts. This significant turn around has been achieved despite the fact that the DFC has provided relief and discounts to thousands of Belizeans who for me one reason or another were unable to keep up with their payments.

In 2005 there were 2,712 delinquent loans. Today there are only 400. Belizean students who had borrowed loans for their education whose balance was $5,000.00 or less had their debt cancelled. Mortgage holders of $50,000.00 or less had their debts reduced and discounted by 25% with an additional 5% if fully paid off.

More recently the DFC further assisted mortgage holders of $35,000.00 or less with a monthly subsidy of $100.00 per month towards their payments. Small farmers who had outstanding loans and suffered disasters whether from crop disease such as sugar cane smut or from damage caused by hurricanes were provided with substantial write offs. Over 2,600 farmers had their small debts cancelled to the tune of some $10.31 million.

Overall in the housing and education sectors, 3,435 Belizeans benefited from financial relief of $19.725 million.

With all this, the DFC under restructured management and streamlined staffing will in 2007 be posting a small profit of half a million dollars with no subsidy from the taxpayers for the year 2008.

The DFC has remained engaged with our multi-lateral partners such as the CDB and the IDB. The Government has done its work to put in place an effective mechanism to continue financing for development – an essential tool for sustainable growth of the Belizean economy.