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June 4, 2014

Branding of Belizean products exported to international markets


A workshop on the branding of Belizean products exported to international markets

A two-day workshop began today at the Radisson Fort George in Belize City. It focuses on branding the Belizean products that are exported to various markets around the world. Dubbed the Belize Export and Origin Consortia Workshop, the Caribbean Development Bank in partnership with the Belize Coalition of Service Providers has organized the initiative to assist service and product manufacturers and providers in sectors of tourism, agriculture and other goods to explore the possibility of exporting collectively. The idea is to see various organizations within a particular industry to share techniques and contacts in order to meet the demands, quality and standards of international markets. And so today, stakeholders gathered for a crash course addressing the benefits of grouping firms for export using the methodology of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The workshop is part of the United Kingdom’s development support initiative to CARICOM states.

 

Grace Chun, UK Deputy High Commissioner to Belize

“It focuses on fostering economic growth and job creation. The expected results include helping the private sector enter new markets, creating jobs and implementing business environment reforms to cut red tape and to facilitate investment.  It’s an organization of several businesses or banks joining together as a group for a shared purpose. Your shared purpose is to bring the three CARTFund projects together to find joint solutions to the challenges and constraints that they face, overcoming the barriers preventing small firms and producers entering global and particularly EU markets is the core of what the UK is seeking to achieve through the CARTFund. As Henry ford once said, coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress, but working together is success. So I hope that this CARTFund event provides the opportunity that you need to drive forward the creation of export consortia to help businesses in Belize compete and win in the global market.”

http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/99634

Caribbean Export and EU Offers Grants to the Region’s Food Producers


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The Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export) officially announced the publication of the Special Call for Proposals – Food Safety for CARIFORUM agro- processing firms to receive financial assistance as part of the Regional Private Sector Development Programme (RPSDP) funded by the European Union under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) on May 28, 2014.

The Special Call for Proposals – Food Safety is a reimbursable grant funding facility specifically designed to provide financial assistance to legally registered agro processing firms within the CARIFORUM region who are exporting or have the potential to export their products to the European Union. It is a facility for firms looking for funding to support their capacity building to meet the food production standards of the European Union (EU) market.

While the challenge also exists among the large enterprises in the Region, it is very prevalent among the small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (MSMEs).  The allocation of this funding is hoped to ensure that goods of regional origin are produced under standard quality control conditions to meet the sanitary and regulatory requirements of the EU marketplace (such as HACCP, GAPs , GlobalGAP, ISO 14000, Fair Trade Certification , BRC, QF 1000, Primus GFS etc).

The Agency’s Executive Director, Pamela Coke Hamilton in her address at the launch event of the Call and it’s Food safety Preparedness Programme counterparts stated, ”This call, with a total commitment of US $200,000 seeks to ensure that food and beverage firms produce their goods under standard quality control conditions to meet the sanitary and regulatory requirements of the international marketplace and to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the EPA… Through this special call, we endeavour to increase the number of CARIFORUM agro-processors certified to export to the EU and beyond.”

Under the 10th EDF RPSDP the Agency is offering with this special call for proposal – food safety grants of up to 10,000 euros which represent a maximum of 70% of the total project cost to CARIFORUM based agro-processing firms. Firms that are exporting or demonstrate their potential to export and who meet the eligibility criteria are encouraged to apply to this special call for proposal – food safety.

The deadline for this Special Call for Proposals – Food Safety is July 9, 2014 and more information can be found at www.carib-export.com.  Contact: Sam Kruiner, Special Advisor – Export Development (skruiner@carib-export.com) , Caribbean Export Development Agency, Tel: +1(246) 436-0578, Fax: +1(246) 436-9999

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