Newly released economic data for Belize delivers a mixed picture, with solid full-year growth for 2025 overshadowed by a marked slowdown in the second quarter of 2026 that has sparked concerns about underlying vulnerabilities in the country’s key production sectors. For the full calendar year 2025, the Central American nation’s gross domestic product expanded by 2.9%, translating to an approximate $150 million increase in total economic output. According to data from the country’s Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB), this broad-based 2025 expansion was driven by strong performances across the primary and service (tertiary) sectors, paired with rising tax collections that boosted overall fiscal and economic activity. The growth trend extended into the second quarter of 2026, but momentum faded sharply: GDP grew by just 1.4% in the three-month period, as sharp contractions in two core sectors pulled the pace of expansion down. Christopher Hulse, a Statistician II at SIB, broke down the sector-by-sector performance in a public briefing, noting that the strongest growth in Q2 2026 came from service-focused industries. “We can see that the largest drivers were wholesale and retail trade, taxes, public administration and other service activities,” Hulse explained. When it comes to shrinking segments of the economy, Hulse added: “With agriculture and manufacturing, construction has been the largest contraction for this quarter.” Breaking down the primary sector’s Q2 2026 performance, Hulse reported that total goods output from the sector reached $116.7 million. That marks a $7.6 million, or 6.1%, drop from the $124.2 million recorded in the same quarter a year earlier, in Q2 2025. Across both the primary (natural resource and agriculture-focused) and secondary (manufacturing and industrial) sectors, production volumes fell just over 6% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026. By contrast, the tertiary service sector managed to eke out a small gain, growing by a little more than 3% over the same 12-month period. While the 2025 full-year result represents a positive milestone for Belize’s economy, the sluggish Q2 2026 growth and simultaneous contraction in two of the country’s foundational production sectors have emerged as clear warning signs for policymakers and market observers tracking the nation’s economic trajectory. This report is adapted from a transcript of an original evening television newscast.