Belize’s Northern Region; Its Economic Performance in the post-independence period

Belize got its Independence when the region was going through an economic crisis with debt burden and traditional export prices reduction. The northern region, once the most important economically, faced major challenges which prompted the introduction of fiscal incentive programs to alleviate the growing unemployment and decreasing economic activity. As an international border, it also faced, during the eighties and nineties, the effects of the Mexican peso devaluation. However, Mexico also constituted its mayor market for the establishment of the Commercial Free Zone. The northern region economy has only partially recovered from the major structural changes that Belize has gone through in its post independence period.