The GOB released remarks made by Prime Minister Dean Barrow marking the vist of Taiwan’s President Ma.

Here are a few interesting quotations from the speech:

Honesty in Government
“I was pleased to hear him say that while of course as leaders we have to be concerned with the practical business of delivering goods and services to our people, of making economic progress, of enshrining social advance, that for him it all begins and ends with honesty in government.”

On being a trailblazer
“He has struck out on a novel path which has not been free from criticism in his own country, but which it seems to me is already beginning to pay dividends.. .President Ma has already made his mark on government in Taiwan.”

On the Economic Cooperation
“There is a great deal of potentials or two areas are in fact deepening Belize Agricultural push, Belize Agricultural expansion with the technical cooperation and economic support of Taiwan especial with respect to the access to capital so that Belize might fairly quickly fulfill its potential in the context not just of self sufficiency in the context of certainly regional food security.”

On Castro and Fishing
“Another area is fish farming. I don’t know how it is that Mr. Castro isn’t here, obviously he didn’t get the memo that the President has an interest in promoting expanded fish farming otherwise I’m sure he would have been here cheering and shouting Tilapia, Tilapia, Tilapia. But again not just with respect to tilapia with respect to cobia and various other species, it appears to me that there is certainly a great deal of scope for expansion in the cooperation between our two countries.”

Something Embarrassing
“Let me just closed by saying again that on behalf of all the members of Cabinet, on behalf of the government and people of Belize, on behalf of the Mayors of the city of Belmopan and of the city of Belize I once again offer to the President and his delegation our sincerest welcome.”
We are by no means grammar experts here at Belize News Post but a government press release should know when to use “close” versus “closed”. It’s possible that those were Barrow’s exact words, that would be too bad, but whatever the case whoever typed the speech up should just fix it. Barrow’s a world leader he can’t be making those kind of those mistakes.

All in all it seems that President Ma’s visit to Belize was a success. It was interesting to hear Barrow speak about honesty in government. We can only hope that he lives by his words and roots out corruption from the government. It also seems that Barrow might fancy himself a trailblazer as well. We would love to hear our readers’ thoughts on Barrow’s displays of trail blazing, and or honesty in government.

The reference to Castro may be an inside joke. If someone could explain it that would be much appreciated.

On a side note Monsters and Critics is reporting that Ma visited the tiny island of Belize…

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