Belize is among the countries of the Caribbean that registered stronger than marginal economic growth last year. The assessment comes from the Caribbean Development Bank as its board of directors is holding its annual board of governors meeting in Georgetown, Cayman Islands.

According to the CDB, which is the region's premier development and banking institution, emerging and developing economies have been the key drivers of the global economic recovery, as advanced economies, the region's main trading partners, have continued to struggle with lingering weakness in financial, labor and housing markets. CDB says that CARICOM countries recorded mixed economic growth last year as they continued to grapple with the fallout from the global economic and financial crisis. And the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank is projecting economic growth of between one and 1.5 per cent in 2012.

The CDB in its annual review of the regional countries said that the growth ranged from a downturn in countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to marginal growth in CARICOM countries like Barbados, St. Lucia and the British Virgin Islands. The CDB notes that in 2011, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Jamaica and Grenada all recorded stronger than marginal growth while only Haiti and Guyana had economic growth in excess of five per cent last year.

LOVEFM