Cuba Has Assisted Belize’s Education and Agricultural Sectors

Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Technology, Dr. Louis Zabaneh, highlighted the longstanding partnership between the two countries in education resulting in hundreds of students benefitting from the annual scholarship programs at Cuban universities.

Dr.Louis Zabaneh, Minister of State, Ministry of Education: “One of the highlights of that cooperation has been education. You know that many of our medical professionals now in our medical system have gotten training in Cuba. We’re certainly grateful for that. During the time of pandemic we also received a contingent of medical professionals from Cuba and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So this visit from them to us certainly means a lot to the Belizean people.”

The Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise, Jose Abelardo Mai, highlighted that the benefits of Belize’s partnership with Cuba trickled even into the sectors for which his Ministry is responsible.

Hon. Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise: “I think this is history. We are grateful, we are honored with the presence of the President of Cuba. Cuba has been a long standing friend of Belize and we have gained so much from them. We’ve learned a lot, they have shared their technical resources in sugar cane I speak from an agriculture perspective, we have excellent agronomists that have returned from Cuba, Belizean agronomists. We have doctors who have shared their research information with us, sugar cane industry has benefitted from soil analysis, soil profile, soil characterization, we’ve had varieties of sugar cane drought in from Cuba so we have benefited a lot from being friends with Cuba and I think that today is historic. We are so grateful with the presence of the President of Cuba today.”