The economies in the Caribbean region have a unique development pattern that has been characterized by the lack of or truncated process of industrialization. Instead, the region has followed a pattern of development from a colonial plantation economy to a tourism-driven economy. This paper will discuss the structural implications of this “skipped industrialization” pattern with a focus on Belize as a case study. Through the use of historical analysis, descriptive trend analysis, and regression analysis based on data from the World Bank, UNIDO, WTTC, and national statistics, it will be shown that there has been a decline in the value added in manufacturing (MVA), industrial employment, and manufactured exports in the region, as well as a growing reliance on tourism earnings. In 2025, tourism accounted for about 46% of Belize’s GDP, while manufacturing was at about 6.8%, down from 12% in 2000 (Statistical Institute of Belize, 2025; World Bank, 2025). While tourism has provided foreign exchange earnings and employment, it has also made the region highly susceptible to external shocks, slowed productivity growth, and perpetuated structural dependency. On the other hand, the oil boom in Guyana has resulted in exceptional growth, with GDP growth of over 43.5% in 2024 and 10.3% in 2025, fueled by oil production of 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) and earnings of $2.5 billion in 2025, as oil production has introduced new dependencies such as commodity price volatility and the possibility of the “resource curse” (World Bank, 2025; IMF, 2025; Badeeb et al., 2017). In a similar manner, the oil and gas economy of Trinidad and Tobago, which peaked in oil production at 230,000 bpd in 1978 and has been dominated by natural gas since the 1990s, has accounted for 40% of GDP and 80% of exports but has also led to boom-bust cycles, Dutch disease, and a lack of diversification (Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, 2025; Palma, 2005). This paper will show that the relatively strong performance of Belize in the area of renewable energy, which accounted for 32.1% of total final energy consumption in 2023, provides a foundation for sustainable industrialization (IRENA, 2025).
Keywords: industrialization, tourism dependency, Caribbean development, Belize, structural transformation, sustainability, premature deindustrialization, resource curse
Abbreviations:
GDP: Gross Domestic Product; MVA: Manufacturing Value Added; CARICOM: Caribbean Community; RE: Renewable Energy; TFEC: Total Final Energy Consumption; GHG: Greenhouse Gas; FDI: Foreign Direct Investment; OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; bpd: Barrels Per Day
